Lauren Bowes Byatt

Nesta is a research and innovation foundation. We apply our deep expertise in applied methods to design, test and scale solutions to some of the biggest challenges of our time, working across the innovation lifecycle. Share this Last year the government published its 10-year health plan for England with the aim of ending the obesity epidemic and shifting from treating sickness to prioritising prevention.

People who feel lonely are much more likely to experience poorer mental health and lower wellbeing, a new collaborative study led by the University of Bristol, Nesta and Amsterdam UMC has found. Loneliness was also found to be linked with worse general health, including experiencing multiple health conditions. Social isolation is associated with lower wellbeing, too. Loneliness is increasingly recognised as a major public health issue, with growing evidence connecting it to poorer health.

Abstract Loneliness and social isolation are important public health concerns due to their associations with a range of health outcomes. However, it is difficult to ascertain whether any effects are biased by confounding and reverse causation. We use a triangulation approach combining observational, sibling control, and Mendelian Randomisation analyses (a genetically informed analysis), to draw robust conclusions about these relationships.