870,000 reasons why social connection matters: Insights from the WHO Report on Loneliness
- Phil McAuliffe
- Aug 4
- 9 min read
Updated: Aug 4
Loneliness causes 870,000 deaths worldwide each year — a staggering number that highlights why social connection matters. The WHO’s landmark report offers key insights and urgent recommendations to build a more connected, caring world.
Hello friend
I’ve got a number that I want you to hold onto for a moment.
870,000.
I’ll let you know when we need it.
If you work in the human connection sector, you’re already aware that the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Connection recently released it’s ‘From loneliness to social connection: charting a path to healthier societies’ report.
However, you may have missed this news if you don’t work in the sector or follow HUMANS:CONNECTING on LinkedIn.
This is big news. I want to bring you up to speed with what’s happening.
What you need to know about social connection
The Commission’s report offers a blueprint for how we can respond to loneliness and social disconnection to create a connected and caring world.
Simply, the report has five main recommendations. The words used here are taken from the report summary:
1. Policy - Social connection needs to be taken more seriously
Governments should create and support a national policy that encourages social connection and makes sure all levels of government and all parts of society work together.
Leaders from governments, the WHO, the UN, schools, universities, and non-profits should come together often to talk, share ideas, and lead the way on making people feel more connected.
A shared online platform should be built by WHO and others so that policy makers around the world can share and learn from policies that are helping to improve social connection.
2. Research - Social connection must be better understood
Global and national research capacity should be built up to improve our understanding of the issue and find better solutions.
Every five years, experts should decide which research questions are most important and money should be provided to explore them.
A Grand Challenges in Social Connection initiative should be launched to foster innovation and teamwork across different fields and organizations to tackle the most important problems related to social connection.
3. Interventions - Cost-effective interventions should be scaled up
WHO should create clear, science-based guidance on what works to reduce social isolation and loneliness and promote social connection.
An “intervention accelerator” should be launched to test and develop cost-effective interventions that work in rich and poor countries alike.
Countries should be supported to put proven interventions into action and scale them up.
4. Measurement and data - Better global data on the size of the problem and who it affects is needed
Governments should collect better data, and more often, to track social connection, social isolation, and loneliness. This data should include different groups, like people of different ages, genders, or abilities.
A global “social connection index” should be created to measure how connected people feel in as many countries as possible.
A 10-year effort should begin to collect this data on a regular basis from all countries, so we can better understand global patterns and make better decisions locally.
5. Engagement - To make social connection a priority, all key players need to be engaged
Social connection should be made a top priority in politics and policy, and leaders should be brought together to support it.
Large public campaigns should be run in countries to raise awareness using one clear global message.
A lasting movement should be built by working across sectors and securing ongoing funding.
The statistics are sobering
Data is what’s used to grab attention and convince a decision-maker or someone influential – like someone in government – to act. This is understandable and the basis of sound public policy development.
Significant effort goes into developing the data. In the human connection sector, the most compelling statistics are often about:
Prevalence of social disconnection
Who’s most impacted
Economic costs
Health impacts (and then the economic costs to the health system).
The data is then used in a way that makes that decision maker’s jaw hit the table and compels them into action.
We humans don’t tend to change when everything in life is going well. In government, if something’s not falling apart or in crisis, it’s considered to be OK enough to not need urgent attention. It’s important, but not urgent.
Humans – individuals, governments, organisations, communities – only change when the discomfort of change is more appealing than the discomfort of doing nothing.
This data-led strategy is a double-edged sword. It’s great at highlighting the size and scale of the issue and distil it into a headline, but the size and scale of the problem can overwhelm and bring political stasis and personal stasis.
The pain of a loneliness experience only ever lives in our own hearts, minds and souls. Data and statistics can come to life when they’re put into that personal context. The Social Connection Commission’s report does this, and it’s stronger for it.
It’s now time for 870,000
One statistic really affected me: 870,000.
It’s the number of deaths caused by loneliness each year globally.
870,000 lives.
Sometimes statistics seem too much (remember my point above about stasis?) that we cannot understand them.
I did some maths to put that number into context.
Each one of those 870,000 people is a human. They had hopes, dreams and aspirations. They had lives and had collected stories throughout them. If we spent just one second listening to each of their stories, we’d be listening for over 10 days straight.
But we’d learn nothing in one second. They’d not even have time to say their name.
If we gave each person one minute to share their life experience, we’d be listening continuously for 1 year and 8 months.
By which time, yet more humans would have been added to the queue waiting to share their story with us.
Or as a friend recently shared on her social media, that’s about 100 deaths an hour.
However we do the maths, it’s a lot. Has your jaw hit the table?
Back to the report and its recommendations.
World, we're on notice
I’ve worked in government for over 23 years – including in diplomacy – and one word stands out to me in all the recommendations: should.
The World Health Organization is an agency within the United Nations. The UN - and the WHO - depend on member states agreeing to engage in and contribute to their work. They also rely on those member states to abide by resolutions, treaties, declarations and recommendations.
However, member states often do not act on UN resolutions, declarations or recommendations that they don’t agree with. There are few consequences if they don’t act according to the UN’s resolutions.
As a result, when states ignore them, the recommendations become hollow, and they lack real impact. We’re compelled to rely on the goodwill of member states to abide by the UN’s rules.
That goodwill can be tough to come by.
To be clear, I’m a fan of the concept of multilateralism (and can happily share a thesis I wrote at university saying as much in thousands of words…) but it works when the rules are respected and upheld.
Should is non-binding language. It does not compel any member state to do anything.
That may sound cynical, and perhaps it is, but I do believe that there’s cause for hope and optimism. This is for two reasons.
First, at the 78th World Health Assembly in May 2025, the WHO formally recognised the essential role of social connection in combatting loneliness, social isolation and inequities in health (see here). Despite social health being in the WHO Constitution at its inception, social health takes its place as the third pillar of health and wellbeing, alongside physical health and mental health.
This means that social health is as important as physical and mental health to our wellbeing. It means that whenever health is discussed, social health does not have to hustle to be heard. This is huge.
Secondly, while UN member states may take some time to get excited about social health, the over 700 people who dialled into the webinar launching the Commission on Social Connection’s report certainly are.
These are 700+ people who represent organisations who are working hard to help humans – you and me – feel connected and socially well. They work in their local communities. They work at a regional level, a national level – or like HUMANS:CONNECTING – at all levels globally.
The energy in the webinar was palpable. The chat was thumping, and it’s bubbled over into social media. There’s a growing army of humans who are working tirelessly to help humans through loneliness and feel socially connected.
The governments of UN member states risk being left behind if they’re not doing work on the recommendations.
They risk being left behind if they do not harness the energy and support the efforts of the humans committing themselves to the social wellbeing of their fellow humans.
It’s time to be bold
Politically, economically and socially, loneliness and social disconnection are often seen as too hard to tackle. Too many people. Too complex. Too expensive. Too uncertain a return.
Loneliness and social disconnection are gnarly subjects. Our need for meaningful social connection is – ironically – connected to how the world we inhabit functions. We quickly realise that loneliness and social disconnection are not issues that can be addressed in isolation. The political, social and economic status quo is challenged when our innate human need for meaningful connection is highlighted.
Addressing loneliness and social disconnection risks upsetting the whole apple cart.
A common response is to tinker. It’s to treat loneliness and social disconnection as isolated issues outside of wider context. It’s to treat loneliness and social disconnection as issues that affect the individual, not the collective.
The time for tinkering and pinning this on individuals is ending. The same old responses get the same old outcomes. It’s time to be bold.
HUMANS:CONNECTING is here for it – and for you
The HUMANS:CONNECTING team and I are already involved in implementing many of the recommendations.
I serve on the Board of Directors of the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection (GILC). GILC is made up of ‘non-profit organisations committed to ending the pressing global issues of loneliness and social isolation through awareness, research, supporting implementers of evidence-based practices, and advocating policy change’ (source). GILC supports member organisations ‘through the dissemination of system-wide, national approaches and global strategies to build social connection.’ Essentially, GILC is a global hub for collaboration and idea sharing on how to best develop strategies addressing loneliness and social disconnection.
I serve on the Evidence-to-Action (E2A) Board of the Lonely-EU project, which tackles social isolation and loneliness (SIL) across Europe. It’s bringing together experts from science, policy, and communication to create a unified EU-wide strategy. The goal is to connect stakeholders, share knowledge, and support better, evidence-based policies at every level — local to EU-wide (source).
Beyond these, HUMANS:CONNECTING is here for governments at all levels through our Collaborative Policy Studio – co-creating public policies to support governments addressing loneliness and social disconnection in their communities.
With our collaborative partners and friends at Annecy Behavioral Science Lab, we’re here for organisations who are aware of the impact that loneliness and social disconnection have on their teams and their overall performance and want to take real action through Creating Connected Workplaces service. It’s designed to make workplaces a place where humans feel meaningfully connected.
And we’re right here for you through this blog and our podcast. We’re right here for you as you focus on your social health and the quality of the connection you feel through our connection starter course.
We’re right here playing our part globally and individually: with you and for you.
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That’s it for this article
Thanks for spending time with these words. We share them to support, challenge, and inspire you as you grow into a more connected, intentional human.
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Until next time, be awesomely you.
~ Phil
Important:
All views expressed above are the author’s and are intended to inform, support, challenge and inspire you to consider the issue of loneliness and increase awareness of the need for authentic connection with your self, with those most important to you and your communities as an antidote to loneliness. Unless otherwise declared, the author is not a licensed mental health professional and these words are not intended to be crisis support. If you’re in crisis, this page has some links for immediate support for where you may be in the world.
If you’re in crisis, please don’t wait. Get support now.
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