Submission to the NSW Legislative Council’s Standing Committee on Social Issues: Inquiry into the prevalence, causes and impacts of loneliness in NSW

Astghik Mavisakalyan, Principal Research Fellow
Daniel Kiely, Senior Research Fellow
Austen Peters, Research Assistant
Richard Seymour, Research Fellow
Chris Twomey, Senior Industry Fellow
Lili Loan Vu, Research Fellow
This inquiry was established to inquire into and report on the prevalence, causes and impacts of loneliness in New South Wales.
BCEC’s response to the inquiry focused on the findings from our report, Stronger Together: Loneliness and social connectedness in Australia (November 2021), which examined the patterns or social connectedness in Australia and provided an assessment of connectedness among different segments of society.
The report also shed light on the patterns of loneliness and identified the groups at greatest risk of loneliness and social isolation.
The report included important insights from the BCEC Social Connectedness Index. Among the main findings, we found that social connectedness has declined in Australia over the last decade, with young women aged 15 to 17 reporting the greatest decline in social support – one of the core dimensions of the Index.
Our findings revealed evidence of a greater prevalence of loneliness among particular sections of our society. People with disabilities, those experiencing socio-economic disadvantage, and culturally and linguistically diverse groups are at particularly high risk of social isolation and loneliness.
We showed that loneliness is associated with worse physical and mental health outcomes and more risky health behaviours. Through detailed accounting of increased GP and Emergency Department visits and the health costs associated with smoking and alcohol consumption, we quantified the overall costs associated with the prevalence of loneliness in Australian society.
Recommendations
Measuring connectedness and understanding social capital
- Continue to measure social capital and connectedness as a means of informing policy and supporting better community wellbeing outcomes.
Social connectedness by region
- Ensure infrastructure strategies and regional development programs prioritise the development of social infrastructure that enables connection and builds a sense of place and community.
- Provide additional support and resources to communities with fewer resources and at-risk populations with greater rates of social exclusion.
Gender, age and connection
- More research into factors effecting social support networks at the transition to adulthood and in early career and family formation.
Social connectedness and disability
- Ensure disability care services prioritise relationship-based care services that support meaningful interaction and enable greater public participation.
- Ensure employment policy delivers substantive equality in pay outcomes for people with a disability, based on education and experience.
- Provide travel and financial support to assist people with a disability who contribute their time to voluntary community development activities.
Social connectedness and Indigenous Australians
- Tackle the social determinants of health to close the gap on Indigenous health and wellbeing outcomes.
- Build the capacity and expand the role of the Aboriginal community-controlled organisations delivering health and community services, to build trust and secure better outcomes.
- Resource and support Aboriginal community health services to develop culturally-secure social prescribing models – making culture and family the key drivers of social capital.
- Leverage the impact of education on enhanced work and life outcomes by better resourcing culturally secure further education programs for Aboriginal people.
- More actively engage Aboriginal community-controlled services in disaster preparedness and response.
Loneliness and health
- Include positive messaging about social connectedness and belonging in public health campaigns on smoking, alcohol consumption and chronic disease to address loneliness as a drive of harmful behaviour and encourage lifestyle change.
- Conduct a national inquiry into ‘social prescribing’ as a means of assisting GPs to help their lonely patients to connect with their local communities, thereby reducing the health costs of loneliness.
Poverty and loneliness
- Reduce reliance on punitive welfare compliance policies and provide more effective social support to individuals and families living in poverty.
- Raise the rate of income support payments above the poverty line for all households.
- Conduct a national inquiry into job search programs and compliance measures, and reform those that impact negatively on wellbeing and employment outcomes. Develop specialist job providers for those with identified mental health and wellbeing concerns.
- Ensure advice on health and wellbeing is readily available to Centrelink clients and low-income households.
- Implement a child wellbeing initiative targeting the provision of resources to children in poverty that enables their participation in school and community (such as shoes, uniforms, books, excursions and sport).
COVID19 and loneliness
Undertake a public health inquiry focused on messaging and behaviour change among older Australians to better understand their lack of response to COVID containment measures and better target public health strategies and communications in the future.
Young people, COVID and loneliness
- Include community connection, self-regulation and life planning skills on the school curriculum.
- Develop public education, information and advice on managing social connection and loneliness targeted to meet the needs of young people transitioning to adulthood.
- Provide more youth mental health and wellbeing outreach services delivering early intervention support and crisis referral. An emerging crisis among young women?
- An inquiry into the wellbeing of young people (particularly young women) with a focus on loneliness and belonging, safety and inclusion post-puberty.
- Programs and initiatives within schools addressing safety, consent and bullying that include cyber-safety, pornography and harmful sexual behaviours.
Community particiption
- Implement a state-level community recovery strategy to encourage social and civic participation, with funding for community support outreach programs to assist those adversely affected by social isolation. Plan to actively respond to future pandemics.
- Actively engage and encourage migrant cultural and community organisations to play a role in recovery, with clear messaging about the value of a cohesive multi cultural society and small grants to community outreach to the most vulnerable and excluded.
Volunteering
- Implement a state-level community recovery strategy to encourage connection or reengagement with voluntary work. Plan to actively respond to future pandemics.
- Resource voluntary organisations to undertake greater outreach to those more affected by social isolation, providing more resources for paid volunteer support roles to assist those with participation barriers.
Regional and remote resilience
- Advocate for a national inquiry into disaster preparedness and recovery, with particular attention to how we build and recover social capital to enhance and maintain resilience.
- Advocate for a national disaster recovery fund and body to oversee prompt and effective recovery, assist households securing compensation and rebuilding, evaluate responses and make recommendations for future preparedness.
Interpersonal and institutional trust
- Establish an independent national corruption commission to maintain and enhance trust in public institutions.
- Communicate effectively the role of public institutions in COVID-19 crisis management and recovery.
- Implement mechanisms to increase public participation in state government decision-making.
Health, loneliness and social prescribing
- Consider social prescribing models and mechanisms to enable health professionals to connect those in need with relevant local voluntary organisations and supports.
- Build the expertise in GPs and health workers, volunteer managers and link workers to make the connections for meaningful voluntary participation in local communities.
- Target outreach and support to those most at risk of loneliness, including disadvantaged groups and people facing life transitions.
- Working with networks like Befriend, explore initiatives that engage local communities in creating connections in the areas they live.
- Support local leaders and groups to co-design meaningful activities that change lives and build communities.