Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

Summary
Pages 1-16

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 1...
... For example: • Social isolation has been associated with a significantly increased risk of premature mortality from all causes; • Social isolation has been associated with an approximately 50 percent increased risk of developing dementia; • Loneliness among heart failure patients has been associated with a nearly four times increased risk of death, 68 percent increased risk of hospitalization, and 57 percent increased risk of emergency department visits; and • Poor social relationships (characterized by social isolation or loneliness) have been associated with a 29 percent increased risk of incident coro nary heart disease and a 32 percent increased risk of stroke.
From page 2...
... Two aspects of social relationships, social isolation and loneliness, have become increasingly prominent in the scientific literature. While both social isolation and loneliness can affect health throughout the life course, this report focuses on the health impacts of social isolation and loneliness among adults aged 50 and older.
From page 3...
... . Second, the committee was charged with identifying and recommending opportunities specifically for clinical settings of health care to help reduce the incidence and adverse health impacts of social isolation and loneliness (such as clinical tools and methodologies, professional education, and public awareness)
From page 4...
... The term "social relationships" is arguably the most common way of referring to the connections and intersections among human beings, and it derives from and is employed in broader common usage. In 1979 Berkman and Syme documented the strong association between social relationships and all-cause mortality and, hence, life expectancy, using the terms "social networks" and "social integration" to denote a broad pattern of social relationships (with both individuals and groups)
From page 5...
... Translate current research into health care practices in order to reduce the negative health impacts of social isolation and loneliness; 3. Improve awareness of the health and medical impacts of social isolation and loneliness across the health care workforce and among members of the public; 4.
From page 6...
... Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Mortality Social isolation and loneliness are as prevalent and play as large a role in today's society as many other well-established risk factors for health, yet limited resources and attention have been committed to better understanding social isolation and loneliness and their individual and collective impacts on health. More than four decades of research has produced robust evidence that lacking social connection -- and, particularly, scoring high on measures of social isolation -- is associated with a significantly increased risk for premature mortality from all causes.
From page 7...
... Strong evidence links social isolation, loneliness, and other indicators of social connection to changes in biological and behavioral responses which may in turn influence health risk. Thus, current evidence supports plausible biological and behavioral mechanisms that explain how social isolation and loneliness ultimately influence health outcomes.
From page 8...
... The committee identified three major aspects of the evidence base for effective clinical and public health interventions that need to be addressed in order to determine best practices and approaches: quality, funding, and research gaps. That is, the overall quality of the evidence base needs to be improved, adequate funding of research will be required, and research on major gaps in the current evidence base needs to be prioritized.
From page 9...
... Many intervention efforts for social isolation and loneliness focus only on community-based organizations, but given the evidence for the broad-reaching impacts of social isolation and loneliness on the health of older adults and the emerging evidence for their impacts on health care utilization, the committee concluded that the health care system is well poised to develop methods for beginning to identify social isolation and loneliness in health care settings. By first identifying those at highest risk, clinicians and health care researchers may be able to use these findings to better target meaningful clinical and public health interventions to individual patients as well as to high-need populations served by a practice or health care system.
From page 10...
... Despite the limits of the evidence base concerning how best to implement these tools in clinical settings, the committee concluded that an important aspect of selecting a tool for use in clinical settings is standardization. This means that within a specific health care system or organization, all clinicians should use the same tool or set of tools; they should use only validated tools and refrain from using only parts of existing tools or creating new, unvalidated tools.
From page 11...
... Workforce development is needed within formal degree and postgraduate programs for health professionals, in training programs for direct care workers and community members, and in lifelong learning opportunities. It will be necessary to educate and train all members of the health care workforce, including professionals, direct care workers, community health workers, volunteers, family caregivers, and members of the larger community, such as police officers and mail carriers, who provide a broad array of services to or regularly interact with older adults.4 Improving Overall Awareness Based on the significant evidence base concerning the health and medical impacts of social isolation and loneliness, the committee concluded that, as with 4 This report focuses on the education and training of health care workers, particularly health care professionals and direct care workers.
From page 12...
... . Strengthening Education and Training While research-based evidence is not yet available to support curricular content on specific interventions for social isolation and loneliness in older adults, enough is known about the health impacts to warrant broad curricular recommendations for all health professions and careers.
From page 13...
... This will include learning to work with direct care workers, community health workers, family caregivers, and other community members as part of a team-based approach to helping older adults. Health care professionals also need to learn how to work with community partners to develop, implement, and evaluate programs for preventing or mitigating social isolation and loneliness in older adults.
From page 14...
... As the evidence for interventions evolves, the educational and training opportunities need to expand to include new and updated evidence-based practices for preventing, assessing, and treating the negative health impacts of social isolation and loneliness. Goal 5: Strengthen Ties Between the Health Care System and Community-Based Networks and Resources Like other social determinants of health, social isolation and loneliness are community-wide problems and some solutions will require coordinated solutions between the health care system and community-based social care providers.
From page 15...
... First, better dissemination is needed of the evidence of the health impacts. Second, the best practices of implementation science need to be used in order to ensure that health care systems and providers are able to more quickly adopt evidence-based practices.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.