Media release

From: American Psychological Association

LONELINESS INTERVENTIONS HELP BUT ARE NOT A CURE-ALL

Therapy and counseling are more effective than social strategies in reducing loneliness, study says

WASHINGTON — Interventions designed to reduce loneliness can be effective, but do not yet offer a complete solution to what is becoming a worldwide public health problem, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

“Loneliness is now widely acknowledged as a serious public health concern linked to depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease and even early mortality,” said lead author Mathias Lasgaard, PhD, of the Central Denmark Region and University of Southern Denmark. “Our findings provide strong evidence that interventions can make a difference, though their overall impact remains modest. Loneliness does not have a one-size-fits-all solution.”

About half of U.S. adults report feeling lonely, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A lack of social connection, HHS notes, can be as harmful to health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. In response, communities across the country are experimenting with creative, grassroots approaches to foster connection, while governments worldwide are beginning to treat loneliness as a public health issue, with strategies ranging from local pilot programs to national action plans.

Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 280 studies on the effectiveness of strategies to reduce loneliness, comprising more than 30,000 participants across the globe. Nearly half of the interventions took place in North America (45%) and over one-fifth in Europe (22%), with fewer conducted in the Middle East (14%) and Asia (13%). The study analyzed five primary types of intervention strategies aimed at reducing loneliness: social support interventions (providing regular care and companionship); social network interventions (creating opportunities for social interaction); social and emotional skills training; psychological interventions (providing therapy or counseling services targeting cognition, behavior or emotions); and psychoeducation (providing educational programs intended to increase knowledge of loneliness and its effects).

The research was published in the journal American Psychologist.

Researchers found that all of these interventions reduced feelings of loneliness, but psychological interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy showed the strongest effects. Digital-only programs tended to be less effective compared with in-person approaches.

The benefits were consistent across children and adolescents, adults and older adults, and effects were sustained for up to six months.

“Many psychological interventions involve addressing social cognition—how people think about themselves, others and social situations. Cognitive behavioral therapy addresses this explicitly,” Lasgaard said. “For example, a person experiencing loneliness might repeatedly assume that others will reject them or interpret social cues as negative. An intervention may help the individual notice these automatic thoughts, question their accuracy and replace them with more balanced interpretations. Over time, this could reduce social avoidance, making it easier to build and maintain relationships.”

This study marks the most comprehensive review of loneliness interventions in more than a decade and highlights the need for scalable, evidence-based solutions, he said.

“Efforts to mitigate loneliness are being developed, implemented and evaluated in many different sectors—including nongovernmental organizations, institutions and workplaces. This indicates that we are moving closer to identifying which interventions are both effective and scalable,” Lasgaard said. “Our research group is also collaborating with a range of stakeholders to help translate the findings into practice.”

While the findings are encouraging, researchers noted that the certainty of the evidence was “low to very low,” due to methodological shortcomings in the studies included in the analysis, such as small sample sizes, high dropout rates and a lack of targeted recruitment of people reporting loneliness. The authors recommend that future interventions be more rigorously evaluated and tailored to specific populations.

“Even with methodological shortcomings, the consistency of results across hundreds of studies strongly suggests that loneliness can be reduced through targeted interventions,” Lasgaard said. “By pinpointing psychological interventions, group-based interventions, and in-person programs as most effective, the study gives policymakers and practitioners guidance today, while pointing to the need for further refinement tomorrow.”