Activities

April 11, 2023

Does old equal lonely in Sweden?

The NEAR Principal Investigators, Ingmar Skoog and Carin Lennartsson participated in the Swedish radio program “Kropp & Själ” in P1. In this program, they discussed loneliness in old age in Sweden.

Picture of Carin Lennartsson and Ingmar Skoog

“It is a myth that older adults are more lonely in Sweden than in other countries”, says Ingmar Skoog Professor of Psychiatry.

Studies show that older people around the Mediterranean, such as in Italy and Spain, experience more involuntary loneliness and are also more depressed than older persons in Sweden.

“We have the most persons living alone, but we perceive loneliness the least. We often confuse social isolation and living alone”, says Associate Professor of Social Work, Lena Dahlberg.

But Sweden still has older persons who suffer from loneliness. Based on the NEAR study, SWEOLD, about 10-15% of those aged 77 years and older feel involuntary loneliness often or almost always. It is a painful feeling and a significant problem that has consequences for both personal health and society in terms of costs. Interestingly, the NEAR-based H-70 study shows loneliness has been pretty stable among older adults for 50 years.

To address involuntary loneliness, we first need to understand what we are talking about – what does loneliness look like and what can we do about it?

“We see social loneliness, emotional loneliness, and existential loneliness. These three types of suffering require different interventions and therefore we need a better understanding of what we are talking about when talking about loneliness”, says Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Carin Lennartsson.

Listen to the program here

More activities

March 31, 2025

Deadline 14 April: NEAR is looking for a Statistician

Apply now for the possibility of joining the NEAR team as a Statistician and contributing to an initiative with far-reaching implications for public health and well-being! Your mission NEAR is a ground-breaking infrastructure comprising 15 databases derived from longitudinal cohort studies across various regions in Sweden, collectively encompassing over 100,000 individuals aged 50 and above. […]

November 15, 2024

NEAR Scientific Workshop at European Public Health Conference in Lisbon

We are excited to share the highlights from NEAR’s scientific workshop “A National E-Infrastructure to Improve Public Health” at the European Public Health Conference 2024 in Lisbon. Ingrid Ekström chaired the workshop, beginning with an introduction from Linnea Sjöberg, who provided an overview of the NEAR infrastructure and its role in advancing aging research in […]

October 15, 2024

NEAR Workshop 2024: High Impact Aging Research ─ Dialogue Among International Infrastructures

On a beautiful fall day on 15 October, NEAR held its sixth workshop in the majestic facilities of the Swedish Society of Medicine. After the initial welcome from NEAR’s Director, Laura Fratiglioni, the workshop continued with various presentations led by the Chair, Björn Halleröd. During these, leading experts of extensive longitudinal and epidemiological studies presented […]