Loneliness as a public health issue in context: capturing experiences and social determinants of loneliness in diverse young adults in London & Tokyo

过去十年的研究指出，感到孤独的成年人数量呈全球增长趋势，尽管不同国家和地区的增长速度差异很大。与“孤独主要是老年人面临的问题”的说法相反，国家和地方政府的统计数据表明，年轻人的孤独率与老年人相当，甚至更高。由于报告孤独的人更有可能在以后出现精神和身体健康问题、成瘾、自残和生活质量下降，对学术界和公共卫生官员来说，孤独率的上升是一个令人担忧的发展。然而，对于什么样的社会环境会增加孤独感的风险并维持孤独感，我们的知识仍然存在差距，而且目前的定量测量工具也限制了研究。本项目汇集了两项正在进行的关于伦敦和东京年轻人心理健康的研究，以1)定性地调查不同群体年轻人的孤独经历和社会决定因素，2)开发一种新的、跨文化有效的问卷，用于测量一般人群中年轻人的孤独。考虑到孤独在两国受到的关注——最近任命的“孤独部长”就是一个缩影——在英国和日本开展这项工作提供了一个独特的机会，为国内公共卫生政策和全球解决社会孤立问题的努力提供信息。

The last decade of research points to a global trend of increasing numbers of adults feeling lonely -though rates of increase differ greatly between countries and regions. Contrary to the narrative thatloneliness is a problem mainly faced by the elderly, national and local government statisticssuggest rates of loneliness are equal or even higher in young adulthood. As people reportingloneliness are more likely to experience later mental and physical health problems, addiction, self-injury and reduced quality of life, rising rates are an alarming development for academics andpublic health officials alike. Yet there remain gaps in our knowledge around what socialcircumstances increase risk for and maintain loneliness, and research is limited by current tools forquantitative measurement.This project brings together two ongoing studies of young people's mental health in London andTokyo to 1) qualitatively investigate experiences and social determinants of loneliness in diversegroups of young people, and 2) develop a new, cross-culturally valid questionnaire for measuringyoung adult loneliness in the general population. Given the attention that loneliness is receiving inboth countries - epitomized by their recent appointments of "Ministers for Loneliness" - conductingthis work in both the UK and Japan presents a unique opportunity to inform domestic public healthpolicy and global efforts to tackle social isolation.