Loneliness is both a personal experience and a public crisis. For about a decade, policymakers—including in the United Kingdom, initiated in part by the late Member of Parliament Jo Cox, and the United States, led by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy—took on isolation as a public health and policy challenge. In recent years, however, momentum has slowed as urgent issues such as international conflict and economic strife take up legislators’ time and focus.
In a recent online panel hosted by Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, Alex Smith, a loneliness researcher and visiting fellow at the center, joined policymakers and leaders who worked on addressing loneliness in the U.K. and U.S. to discuss the rise of anti-loneliness policy starting around 2010 and its fall from public focus, largely after the pandemic.
Smith recently published a report on the topic, “Only the Beginning: How The UK Made An Impact On Loneliness And How It Can Do It Again.” He spoke alongside Olivia Field, who leads the U.K.-based Jo Cox Foundation, Trey Leveque, former engagement chief of staff in the office of former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and Tracy Crouch, former United Kingdom minister for loneliness. Liz Schwartz, director of communications and strategy at the Shorenstein Center, moderated the conversation.
The panelists honored the legacy of a member of Britain’s parliament and trailblazer in the anti-loneliness movement, Jo Cox. She had created a governmental Loneliness Commission and spoke openly about her own experiences of loneliness. In 2016, she was murdered on her way to meet with constituents. In the wake of this tragedy, leaders in and outside of government—including Prime Minister Theresa May—took on the mantle of Cox’s work.
We share excerpts from the conversation below, lightly edited for concision and clarity.
Addressing loneliness in the United Kingdom and United States
Alex Smith
In the U.K., in the 30 years before 2010, there had been accelerated social change around globalization, deindustrialization, and a sense of rising individualism...then in 2007 and 2008, two major things happened. Firstly, the arrival and then proliferation of smartphones and social media. And secondly, the financial crash. And so around those two issues, questions of identity, connection, and belonging were starting to rise up in policy conversations and in communities. And people were experiencing loneliness more and more in their lives and seeing it in their professional roles…
From 2010 to 2015 in particular, the U.K. had a coalition government in which there were a lot of key messages around the Big Society [a sociopolitical concept influential in British conservatism] …and that was an encouragement from the top down to community leaders and ordinary people to get a hold of their communities, to take action in their communities, and to fix problems right in front of their own eyes…
There was [also] a small number of initially unconnected academics that produced evidence about the insidious nature of loneliness amongst specific groups. The creation of the Campaign to End Loneliness in the U.K., in particular, sparked connections between researchers, philanthropy, government, civil society more broadly, and that began to create a ripple effect.
Trey Leveque
There were three things that really stood out to me in the U.S., and what was shaping social connection and loneliness, during the 2010-to-2020 period.
The first was that the evidence and research became impossible to ignore. Researchers were increasingly demonstrating that social connection and disconnection affect not only emotional well-being, but physical health, mental health, emotional outcomes, workplace performance, and even civic participation. What had long been considered a private struggle in so many situations and scenarios had started to become recognized as a public health issue, which led to the work that Dr. Murthy put out in 2023 on the healing effects of social connection and community.
The second thing that really stands out to me is that people were really feeling it. Across the U.S. and many other countries, people were experiencing declining trust, weakening community ties, increased polarization, and fewer opportunities for meaningful connection. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a growing sense that something fundamental was changing in how we relate to one another.
And third, I think the leaders in the U.S, whether within government or in the private sector or nonprofit sector, were helping put language around what people were already experiencing.
“Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a growing sense that something fundamental was changing in how we relate to one another. ”
The leadership and legacy of Jo Cox
Alex Smith
The life, leadership, and legacy of Jo Cox, the British MP, was the key factor in the U.K. taking systemic action on loneliness.
She really led the debate on loneliness in Parliament. She created the Loneliness Commission, and when she was then tragically murdered in 2016, her friends and family sought to honor Jo through renewed and urgent calls to make an impact on loneliness. That was the key factor in the U.K. But it was followed by ambitious and bold political leadership. A group of women, who felt the injustice of Joe's murder and who operated incredibly collaboratively across civil society, government, politics, and beyond…also the civil service team that was working on the issue.
That collaboration drove the creation of the world’s first-ever government-level loneliness strategy. But it was more than that—this was in the body politic as well. There was a sense of public empathy, both for the loss of Jo, but also for the issue of loneliness. The issue began to cut through with the public. There was a sense that the stigma around loneliness was being reduced on a personal and a community level.
Olivia Field
Jo knew that while loneliness is a deeply personal and subjective emotion, its drivers and solutions are really everyone’s business, and there are solutions…her legacy ultimately shattered the myth that it only affects older people and proved that it impacts people of all ages and from all backgrounds.
She refused to accept living in a lonely country, and following her tragic murder in 2016, her family and colleagues turned that vision into quite a remarkable legacy that spread beyond the U.K.
On the U.K.’s Loneliness Commission
Tracy Crouch
When the [loneliness] commission recommended the appointment of a minister, and the Prime Minister, Theresa May, asked me to do the role…I took a lot of guidance from the sector and from all those that are involved.
What was very clear was that it had to be cross-party, but it had to be cross-departmental as well. It had to include every policy area to make sure that people understood why they were an important part of this conversation. So, if you’re in the Department for Transport, and you’re making a policy decision that effectively cuts bus routes from rural communities, and you don’t understand how that connects to loneliness, then there’s a problem.
Equally, if you’re in the planning department and you’re building communities without any center point to them, then there’s a problem. So, it was about getting people from across the whole of government to understand how really simple changes could be made to policy, that there were challenges out there that they, too, could help tackle.
And so, it was a genuine, collaborative approach to delivering a strategy in a relatively short period of time in government terms, of about 6 months. It was well received, it was data-led, it had clear recommendations, it had a long-term ambition, it was funded—and so I was very proud to be able to deliver that strategy.
Looking ahead
Trey Leveque
One thing that Dr. Murthy often said is that loneliness is not a fringe issue affecting a small group of people. It is a universal signal. Just as hunger tells us that we need food, loneliness tells us that we need human connection. When leaders like Jo Cox in the U.K. and Dr. Murthy in the U.S. evaluated the issue, people suddenly had language for something that they had been feeling for years.
One lesson I took away from my time working for Dr. Murthy in the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General is that people don’t necessarily need to be convinced that loneliness exists, but they do often need permission to talk about it.
Tracy Crouch
I think other countries are really paying attention now to the issue of loneliness…we had interest from around the world in what we were doing, from pretty much every continent, [people] came and asked us about it, took the strategy, looked at it as a template…I do think that there is still a real drive from policymakers from around the world to recognize the issue of loneliness, recognize the health impact, the social impact of loneliness, and try and tackle it in their own unique ways.
Alex Smith
There is hope, because people in the sector are beginning to come back together again. I think there is an opportunity to put this issue back on the government’s agenda. It’s very sadly the 10th anniversary of Jo’s murder in a couple of weeks, so there are things that can be done around reminding people about what happened in 2016 to 2018 and the progress that was made.
Olivia Field
It’s important to remember that loneliness was never going to be solved by a single strategy, or just a few years of coordinated work. The 2018 strategy was a vital and incredibly welcome first step. It laid the foundations for change…so we’ve got a lot to work with.
I think one of the best and strongest ways we can honor [Jo Cox’s] legacy is to re-energize that coordinated loneliness approach.
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Photo by Maskot / Getty Images
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