The standard public health threats are all-too familiar: Smoking. High blood pressure. Cancer. More recently, COVID-19. But a new government advisory made headlines in 2023 by adding an unexpected major player to that list. Loneliness, stated the report from Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, is a widely underrecognized U.S. health crisis.
In recent years, about 50 percent of Americans have experienced loneliness, which comes with a hefty dose of adverse effects. Lonely people, as Murthy’s report warns, run the same mortality risk as people who smoke 15 cigarettes a day.
