Mental Health Awareness Week: The importance of tackling loneliness

Loneliness is a key driver of poor mental health and is often associated with elderly people. Yet it is certainly not confined to this age group. As chair of the Anna Freud Centre, we see that it is a problem for the young as well and can affect them for the rest of their lives. 

Mental health awareness week begins today (9 May) and the theme is loneliness. Though loneliness is not a mental illness in and of itself, the two are closely related. Mental illness can make us feel lonely and loneliness may lead to or exacerbate mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Indeed, it is associated with a number of health issues, both physical and mental. These include increased risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, cognitive decline, dementia, and depression. Most strikingly perhaps, research has shown that loneliness has the same impact on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Loneliness is not just a physical and mental health problem, it is also a social and economic problem; it is estimated that loneliness costs the UK £2.5bn per year.