New perspectives on loneliness: developing theory, methodology and evidence for practice

2013年10月18日，卫生部长杰里米·亨特在英国国家儿童和成人服务机构(NCAS)会议上发表了一篇关于老年人的演讲，他强调了“在忙碌的生活中，我们作为一个社会完全没有面对的孤独问题”，并以不同的方式表示：“在英格兰，多达80万人”长期孤独“，这是”国家耻辱“的一个来源；”大约500万人说电视是他们主要的陪伴形式“，并得出结论说，”生活在我们中间的被遗忘的100万人--忽视了我们的国家耻辱。“他提出的解决晚年孤独问题的建议是效仿他所说的亚洲国家内部所表达的尊重和明确的代际团结，每个孤独的人都有人可以拜访他们并提供陪伴。孤独被认为是“变老的正常部分”，老年人被认为是孤独和孤立的。事实上，老年人自己希望在晚年经历孤独，并将其视为衰老的正常部分。通过关注孤独和老年人，我们忽视了更广泛的人生历程和代际视角，并边缘化了对年轻人、照顾者、有学习障碍的人、LGBT人群和群体环境中的居民的研究。具体的学术学科，如艺术、人文和哲学，在很大程度上仍然是不可见的，研究人员往往在单一的学科小组中工作。有必要制定“第二代”研究议程，在经验和理论上为孤独感研究带来更复杂的方法，并涵盖更广泛的学术学科和人群，以便为基于政策和实践的干预措施的发展提供信息。此外，我们在这一研究领域的专家的社会研究人员数量有限，因此迫切需要鼓励新的研究人员进入这一领域，并鼓励那些刚开始职业生涯的人在这一研究领域发展技能。因此，我们的系列研讨会侧重于从理论、方法论和经验角度来研究生命过程中的孤独，这既是原创的，也是具有学术、实践和政策意义的。我们将专注于产生当代知识的实质性最先进的概述，找出我们的关键知识差距，检查政策和实践的证据，开发“新的”研究人员，并创建一个由经验丰富的和新兴的研究人员组成的网络，与从业人员和政策制定者结合起来，发展充满活力的合作和机制，以提高这一重要工作领域的形象。我们的六个系列研讨会将确定和辩论围绕着一系列群体和地点的孤独经历的关键问题，并集中在以下问题上：1.我们对孤独有什么了解？知识差距是什么？2.可以帮助我们理解孤独的关键理论框架是什么？3.从艺术和人文的角度如何有助于我们对孤独的理解？4.不同人群如何理解和定义孤独？5.在孤独研究中忽略了哪些人群和地方？6.在未来的政策、实践和研究中需要解决哪些关键问题？为了回答这些问题，我们将召集国际知名学者、研究人员、政策制定者和实践者。我们已经建立了非政府组织之间的合作，如结束孤独运动和Silverline，并领导了由大彩票资助的孤独干预措施的主要评估。在每个实质性研讨会中，将有时间专门用于发展和支持早期职业研究人员。

In a speech about older people to National Children and Adults Services (NCAS) conference on October 18th 2013 the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt highlighted the "problem of loneliness that in our busy lives we have utterly failed to confront as a society" and stated variously that ..'it is a source of "national shame" that as many as 800,000 people in England are "chronically lonely", ; "Some five million people say television is their main form of company," and concluding that "A forgotten million who live amongst us - ignored to our national shame." His suggestion to solve the problem of loneliness in later life is to emulate the 'respect' and explicit inter-generational solidarity he states is articulated within Asian countries and that every lonely person has someone who could visit them and offer companionship''. Loneliness is perceived as a 'normal part of ageing' and older people perceived as lonely and isolated. Indeed older people themselves expect to experience loneliness in later life and see it as a normal part of ageing. By focus on loneliness and older people we have neglected wider life course and intergenerational perspective and marginalised research with young people; carers; those with learning disabilities; LGBT people and those residents in group settings. Specific academic disciplines such as those of the arts and humanities and philosophy remain largely invisible and researchers often work in single disciplinary groups. There is a need to develop a 'second generation' research agenda bringing a more sophisticated approach to the study of loneliness, empirically and theoretically, and embracing a much broader range of academic disciplines and populations in order to inform the development of policy and practice based interventions. In addition we have limited numbers of social researchers who are expert in this area of research so there is a pressing need to stimulate new researchers to move into this area and encourage those at the start of their careers to develop skills in this area of research. Thus our seminar series focusing upon the theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives on loneliness across the life course is both original and of academic, practice and policy relevance. We will focus on generating substantive state of the art overview of contemporary knowledge, identifying our key knowledge gaps, examining the evidence for policy and practice, developing 'new ' researchers and creating a network of experienced and emerging researchers combining with practitioners and policy makers to develop vibrant collaborations and a mechanism to raise the profile of this important area of work. Our series of 6 seminars will identify and debate the key issues surrounding the experience of loneliness across a range of groups and places and focus upon the following questions:-. 1. What do we know about loneliness and what are the knowledge gaps?2. What are the key theoretical frameworks that can help us understand loneliness?3. How can perspectives from the arts and humanities contribute to our understanding of loneliness?4. How do different populations understand and define loneliness? 5. Which populations and places have been neglected in loneliness research?6. What are the key issues that need to be addressed in future policy, practice and research?To answer these questions we will bring together established international academics, researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. We have established collaborations between non-governmental organisations such as the Campaign to End Loneliness and Silverline and are leading the major evaluation of loneliness interventions funded by the BIG Lottery. Embedded with each substantive seminar there will be time devoted to developing and supporting early career researchers.