Social isolation rates doubled in Australia over last 23 years

0:00Well in the hell of sun today we read that in this magnificent country of ours Australians are increasingly lonely and socially isolated, research has found and this study was done in the University of Sydney found rates of social isolation nearly doubled in the past 23 years. Professor Melody Ding from the University of Sydney's School for Public Health has joined us. Morning to you, Prof. Good morning. The fine loneliness for us. What we found was a very interesting and somewhat unexpected finding that between the year 2001 and 2023 we've seen Australian more than doubled the prevalence of social isolation and we also observe a slight increase in loneliness as well. So Professor I suppose if it went from you know 1% to 2%, maybe you could cope with that but my assumption is that the amount or the percentage of Australians feeling lonely would be quite high. Yes, first I wanted to say that we're looking

1:05at loneliness and social isolation as two separate concepts because they're also mixed up. So what we see particularly as problematic is social isolation. So that's you know people having you know see friends less and participate less in their community so that's social isolation and loneliness is how people feel that they need more social relationship in their life so the two are different and what we see particularly at risk is social isolation. Okay so that's makes some sense to me in that I can see how I might be able to fix social social isolation less so loneliness because loneliness is how I feel so social isolation being on by myself. So how do we make sure that that is reduced? I think it's really at multiple level I think rising inequalities and cost of living is not making socializing easier and at a community level we don't have as many you know places together as we used to have as communities and people have used digitalization to kind of source out a lot of things. A lot of you know errands

2:07in our life that we don't need individual context anymore so there's just lots of things that are happening in our life that meet us. Look at see this shift and I think you know trying to reverse that we really have multiple levers to to you know work with. So Professor when I think about social isolation I suppose what I do is I get a bit ageist on thinking about you know older people that might feel it but equally my suspicion is that there will be a lot of young people that are feeling socially isolated. Yes that's correct even though we see that older people can't report muscle isolation what we see in young people is that the tend to have a sharper increase so especially with long enough we see really sharp increase in young people and I think I think there's really many things happening here and yeah it is a it is a big social problem now. So socially isolated or loneliness how long does it take because you know you can be by yourself for a month or two to fix people with different rates I imagine generally speaking

3:07how long does it take to start to feel like you are socially isolated? That is really good question you know in terms of both social isolation and loneliness if you occasionally feel that way it is totally normal that's just what we are as humans you know especially with loneliness where we actually tend to hypothesis in in a scientific literature is that it is a healthy thing to feel lonely every now and then because that kind of prompts us to reach out to people that's good to know. Yeah so definitely when you just this digitize it you know if I say lonely for the two weeks that's totally fine that's like just congratulations you're human but if we tend to feel repeatedly say over you know a year two years chronically that's when the health consequences really start to go away. So Professor you say it's a big problem now so it's a big problem that needs big solutions now am I right in thinking that even Britain there is a Minister for loneliness so my assumption there yeah so my assumption there being this is a big problem therefore we need to use government weight in order to try and do something about it so

4:12should we have a Minister for loneliness in Australia? That is a really interesting question I I think that having a designated Minister for loneliness definitely will raise awareness at the population level I think having both issues being somewhat sensitive and stigmatized in some communities raising that awareness is really important so if anything like having that awareness and having a designated person to sort out this issue is important. Thank you Professor much appreciate it Professor of Mental The Ding there Dave Roberts here there you are surrounded by fans sharing wings sharing drinks high-fiving random strangers everybody remembers the game nobody remembers the guy coughing behind you until a few days later at 2 a.m. you wake up with the fever and your throats on fire now what urgent care close ER slam telehealth maybe but the pharmacies close you needed a medical emergency kit these aren't first aid kits they contain essential prescriptions used for over 30 common conditions sinus and ear infection UTIs stomach bug travelers

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