In her inaugural speech as the head of the Royal College of General Practitioners recently, Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard chose to focus her remarks on loneliness.
“GPs see patients, many of whom are widowed, who have multiple health problems,” she said. “But often their main problem isn’t medical. They’re lonely. These patients need someone to listen to them, and to find purpose in life.”
Stokes-Lampard is not the first leading medical professional to express concern about the impact that isolation is having on physical health. Last month the former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy spoke out about the link between loneliness and life-span.
[For more on this story by LAURA ALCOCK-FERGUSON, go to https://www.citylab.com/equity...s-loneliness/543693/]
Photo: Joe, a participant in the Loneliness Project's experiment, talks to Barry about life in isolation after spending a week alone. Screenshot from the Loneliness Project.
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