A program of research that established loneliness and social isolation as modifiable population-health problems — and that designed, tested, and scaled the policy infrastructure, clinical pathways, and digital interventions that translate that evidence into practice.
Loneliness and social isolation are among the most consequential, and most undertreated, determinants of mental and physical health. Decades of epidemiology have documented their links to mortality, cardiovascular disease, depression, and dementia. But until recently, public-health systems lacked the policy guidance, clinical pathways, and measurement infrastructure to treat social connection as a modifiable health behaviour the way we treat physical activity, nutrition, or sleep. My program of research was built to close that gap.
The work spans four interlocking layers: (1) Surveillance & epidemiology — using national and longitudinal data from the Canadian Social Connection Survey and partner cohorts to characterize who is lonely, when, and why; (2) Policy infrastructure — co-developing the Canadian Social Connection Guidelines through an international Delphi consensus process and Canada-wide community consultation; (3) Intervention & implementation — designing and evaluating social-prescribing pathways for older adults and other priority populations in partnership with the Canadian Red Cross, the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing, Fraser Health, and provincial health systems across Canada; and (4) Translation & knowledge mobilization — building the Addressing Loneliness mHealth tool, evidence briefs, and government briefings that put findings into the hands of practitioners and decision-makers.
The research is conducted through the Canadian Alliance for Social Connection and Health (CASCH), which I co-founded, and the Canadian Institute for Social Connection and Health, where I lead a multi-site team of researchers, link workers, and community partners. The aim is not to publish more papers about loneliness, but to make social connection a normal, fundable, and accountable target of public-health practice.
Loneliness is not spread evenly across a population. It concentrates among people pushed to the margins: those living in poverty, people with disabilities, racialized and newcomer communities, and isolated older adults. These are the same axes of social position that pattern other health inequities, which means loneliness is not simply a private feeling but a product of how social environments are built and who is excluded from them.
Treating loneliness as a personal failing, or as something individuals should fix through willpower alone, mistakes the cause for the cure. My work takes the opposite view. Working alongside the communities most affected, I build the guidelines, policy levers, and supports that make connection reachable for the people whose circumstances cut them off from it. This is community-based social epidemiology in the service of equity: changing the conditions rather than blaming the individual.
Reducing social isolation and loneliness requires acting at two levels at once — helping individuals build healthier connections, and reshaping the social, policy, and service environments around them. These four anchor projects do that work together. The Canadian Social Connection Guidelines set the population-level standard of what good social health looks like; the Loneliness Policy Menu equips governments and decision-makers with the policy levers to act on it; Tether puts the guidelines into everyday hands as a self-guided digital intervention; and CASCH is the alliance and knowledge-mobilization backbone that links researchers, practitioners, and community partners across all of it. Together, they form a coordinated infrastructure for translating evidence into population health action.
The world’s first national public-health guidelines for social connection — 12 recommendations across the individual and community levels, developed through an international Delphi consensus and Canada-wide community consultation. Backed by 50+ evidence briefs and case studies.
socialconnectionguidelines.orgAn interactive policy library that helps governments, public-health agencies, and community organizations identify, compare, and adapt concrete policy levers for reducing loneliness and strengthening social connection — turning the guidelines into actionable choices for decision-makers.
loneliness-policy-menu.vercel.appA self-guided digital intervention that translates the Social Connection Guidelines into everyday practice. Built as a scalable, low-cost adjunct to social-prescribing pathways — designed for the individuals and families the guidelines are meant to reach.
addressing-loneliness.vercel.appThe research-to-practice alliance behind the program. CASCH connects researchers, practitioners, link workers, and community partners; produces plain-language evidence briefs and case studies; and provides the convening infrastructure that lets the other three projects move into the systems where they’re needed.
casch.orgCumulative funding for this program: $9.4M across 31 awards, from CIHR, SSHRC, PHAC, Michael Smith Health Research BC, philanthropic partners, and international funders.
Among 113 publications in this area. The full filterable record is on the publications page.
Selected from 78 presentations in this area. Decision-makers, practitioners, and academic audiences.
The Social Connection Guidelines and surrounding research have been featured in the CBC documentary Talk About Lonely, the CBC Ideas series All the Lonely People, The Conversation, Chatelaine, The Globe and Mail, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, and dozens of regional outlets.
Social connection is one of the strongest protective factors against climate-related distress — and a central mechanism in our climate-resilience interventions.
See the climate programSocial disconnection both drives and is driven by overlapping epidemics. Many of the cohorts that anchor my syndemics work also feed our loneliness research.
See the syndemics program