Social isolation and loneliness among older adults in the context of COVID-19: a global challenge

We are experiencing a historical moment with an unprecedented challenge of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The outbreak of COVID-19 will have a long-term and profound impact on older adults' health and well-being. Social isolation and loneliness are likely to be one of the most affected health ou...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Global health research and policy 2020-06, Vol.5 (1), p.27-27, Article 27
Main Author: Wu, Bei
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adults
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging
Alzheimer's disease
Asian Americans
Cardiovascular disease
Caregivers
Community Networks - statistics & numerical data
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Delivery of Health Care - statistics & numerical data
Disease transmission
Health care policy
Humans
Loneliness
Loneliness - psychology
Long term health care
Meals
Mental health
Nursing homes
Older people
Pandemics
Peer tutoring
Population
Public health
Public health messaging
Social distancing
Social isolation
Social Isolation - psychology
Social networks
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We are experiencing a historical moment with an unprecedented challenge of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The outbreak of COVID-19 will have a long-term and profound impact on older adults' health and well-being. Social isolation and loneliness are likely to be one of the most affected health outcomes. Social isolation and loneliness are major risk factors that have been linked with poor physical and mental health status. This paper discusses several approaches that may address the issues of social isolation and loneliness. These approaches include promoting social connection as public health messaging, mobilizing the resources from family members, community-based networks and resources, developing innovative technology-based interventions to improve social connections, and engaging the health care system to begin the process of developing methods to identify social isolation and loneliness in health care settings.
ISSN:2397-0642
2397-0642
DOI:10.1186/s41256-020-00154-3