Widespread loneliness comes with a direct cost to communities, the workplace, and public services like health and social care. In the “office”, these costs can be measured as anything from days off due to illnesses associated with loneliness, to falls in productivity at every level of employment from line staff to C-level executives. Where communities and the services they rely on are concerned, these costs include longer stays in hospital, more frequent visits to the GP, higher risks for accident and emergency department visits, and the insurmountable burden on caregivers. Several research bodies and authorities have confidently understood the cost of loneliness to be well into the tens of billions for any given country.

The reality is that no matter how convoluted and futile the issue may appear, we cannot afford to stand idle. With unavoidable global shifts like the maturation of Centennials - known as Generation Z, and the world’s loneliest demographic yet - as well as an aging global population, the ramifications of loneliness left unaddressed will be felt on a collective scale. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to successfully intervening with loneliness, either. However, through finding viable, contextually relevant interventions delivered by a series of stakeholders, the impacts on society can be significantly reduced, including their economic tolls.