This week is Global Loneliness Awareness Week, designated by the Foundation for Social Connection and its partners to activate local communities, policymakers, and innovators to share resources, identify areas of collaboration, and educate the public on the importance of belonging and resiliency. In a recent advisory, the US Surgeon General called loneliness a public health issue and connected it to greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. The advisory noted that people with disabilities are among those most at risk for social disconnection.

Connection plays a critical role in individual, community, and societal health, and the advisory offers a framework for how we can all contribute to improving social connection. NIDILRR-funded efforts to identify and resolve barriers to social connection among people with disabilities and caregivers have led to the development of many resources we can use today to foster welcoming environments and reduce loneliness. Here are just a few:

• The Connections Matter Calendar, from the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Community Living and Participation of People with Serious Mental Illness, explores the connections that matter to people with serious mental illness and offers ways for them to build these connections into their life. This center has also published extensive resources to help communities and employers foster welcoming environments.
• Relationships Matter: Stories from Individuals with Lived Experience, from the project Being Needed: Building Social Connections that Matter to Reduce Social Isolation and Loneliness, emphasizes the importance of reciprocal relationships, with quotes from individuals interviewed about the meaningful relationships in their lives.
• Social Isolation and Loneliness Among Rural and Urban People with Disabilities, from the RRTC on Place-based Solutions for Rural Community Participation, Health, and Employment discusses a study on the experiences of and the risk factors for social isolation and loneliness in people with disabilities in rural and urban areas. The report also highlights the role of structural barriers related to employment and transportation in social isolation and loneliness disparities among people with disabilities.
• In 2021, NIDILRR/ACL hosted a series of webinars on Social Isolation and Loneliness, featuring research from the grantee community and elsewhere to identify and address barriers to connection and participation.
• In 2022, NIDILRR/ACL also published a brief, Leveraging Innovation, Collaboration, and Data with Assistive Technology to Reduce Social Isolation and Loneliness: Success Story from Illinois, highlighting a model and innovative partnership at both the federal and state levels that successfully purchased and distributed technology devices to older adults and people with disabilities served by local agencies in order to reduce social isolation and loneliness.

More work continues in this area. Here are some of the current NIDILRR-funded projects conducting research and development to address social isolation and loneliness among people with disabilities and caregivers:

• Being Needed: Building Social Connections that Matter to Reduce Social Isolation and Loneliness. This project aims to develop and test an intervention to enhance social connections and feelings of mattering among adults with serious mental illnesses (SMI).
• Get Connected: Online Peer Support to Reduce Social Isolation. This project aims to develop an online multi-media product that community-based agencies can use to help people with disabilities living in the community develop social networks to reduce social isolation and loneliness.

Social isolation and loneliness are serious public health concerns, especially for people with disabilities and older adults. The Surgeon General is optimistic in his letter opening the advisory, however, and finds that we have the power and resources to respond to this crisis:

“By taking small steps every day to strengthen our relationships, and by supporting community efforts to rebuild social connection, we can rise to meet this moment together. We can build lives and communities that are healthier and happier. And we can ensure our country and the world are better poised than ever to take on the challenges that lay ahead.”