00:00 Sometimes the prevalence of loneliness can differ depending on the sample that you survey.
00:06 Based on Australian Hilda's study, for example, we do know that loneliness measured across
00:11 a five-year period is as high as 34%.
00:14 And some of the typical factors are things like living in a more deprived neighbourhood,
00:21 being from single-parent households, having low income.
00:23 Those sorts of things tend to be quite consistent across national, international data.
00:28 And what are we seeing with rural-urban divide, men-women, young and old?
00:33 What we do know from large meta-analyses, so studies that have pooled data from across
00:40 many studies, is that actually the rates of loneliness between men and women are quite
00:44 equivalent.
00:45 There is some emerging research around rural and remote, that perhaps that people who are
00:52 living in more rural areas actually have less access to meaningful social activities and
00:57 therefore may report higher levels of loneliness.
01:02 And so across states, though, we don't really see all too much difference.
01:06 However, I think again, these sorts of results are very much dependent on the sample that
01:11 you survey, and those sorts of things can change.
01:15 And just to be clear, loneliness is not the same as social isolation.
01:20 How would you describe it?
01:21 Absolutely.
01:23 So loneliness is really what we call subjective feeling, where you feel your relationships
01:28 do not meet your current social needs.
01:31 And so it's very much related more to the quality as opposed to quantity.
01:34 So you feel like you do not have those meaningful social connections for you to really feel
01:40 fulfilled.
01:41 You might feel like people don't understand you, or perhaps you don't have anyone to turn
01:44 to or talk to, despite actually being around people.
01:49 How are we making inroads in addressing it?
01:53 So I think what we really need to do is actually think about a comprehensive strategy to combat
01:58 loneliness and social isolation, which is also very important.
02:02 We don't actually have that at the moment.
02:04 So we need to think about how we can promote social connection in our day to day lives.
02:08 And the opportunities for us to kind of think about, you know, addressing loneliness within
02:13 kind of different kinds of policies, including health, education, well-being.
02:17 You know, we haven't quite got there yet, but we do know now that even our community
02:22 awareness about the issue is fairly low.
02:25 And actually, what we should be doing is also incredibly poor.
02:29 So we really need to start from there.
02:32 And I mean, yeah, we can address it at a society level in community groups, and also the individual
02:36 can make changes.
02:37 But on that individual level, do you think some people who are suffering loneliness recognize
02:42 that that is the issue in their life?
02:45 Gemma, actually, no, they don't.
02:47 Loneliness still carries what I call a huge amount of stigma in our community.
02:53 And this is really from years of misunderstanding what loneliness is.
02:56 We now know actually from robust scientific research that actually loneliness is much
03:01 more of an evolutionary signal, a human innate signals, not very dissimilar to feeling hungry
03:07 or thirsty.
03:08 It is a signal for us to connect with people so we can thrive and flourish.
03:12 But for some reason, we have this community stigma that loneliness is perhaps a deficit
03:19 of the individual.
03:21 And I think what I would really say is that loneliness itself is a very normal signal
03:26 for us to feel all the time.
03:28 And all of us would feel lonely at some point.
03:31 But many of us also do stay lonely because of factors that are absolutely out of our
03:36 control, you know, including things like what I mentioned before, kind of having low income,
03:42 you know, inability to access to other people in communities.
03:46 So you know, loneliness itself should now be seen, I think, as a normal signal for us
03:51 to connect.
03:53 But we need to really address that stigma that still continues in the community.
03:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Comments