Social isolation kills. It increases your risk of death by 30% — roughly the same as smoking cigarettes and much worse than factors such as obesity and sedentary living.
Americans are living through what researchers call a friendship recession, spending less time with friends than at any point in recent history.
In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness an epidemic. Deaths from factors like suicide, addiction and alcoholism, referred to as deaths of despair, continue climbing.
While doctors routinely check patients’ blood pressure and ask about exercise habits, they rarely assess social health.
Public health guidelines urge Americans to eat their vegetables, exercise for 150 minutes weekly, sleep seven to nine hours nightly and drink less than one or two alcoholic beverages per day. But few public health bodies have addressed social connection — until now.
As scholars who focus on public policy and social determinants of health and well-being, we are part of an international team of more than 100 experts who undertook the first systematic effort to develop evidence-based guidelines for social connection.
