{"id":118610,"date":"2024-05-28T09:17:45","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T14:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thechicagoschool.edu\/insight\/?p=118610"},"modified":"2025-04-16T17:34:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T22:34:40","slug":"social-isolation-public-health-and-the-paradox-of-connectivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thechicagoschool.edu\/insight\/from-the-magazine\/social-isolation-public-health-and-the-paradox-of-connectivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Isolation, Public Health, and the Paradox of Connectivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe are called to build a movement to mend the social fabric of our nation,\u201d says Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in a 2023 advisory<\/a> titled \u201cOur Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.\u201d In today\u2019s fragmented and often oppositional culture, this prescription can sound at once inspirational and hard to envision. Although our lives are more interconnected than ever, we are also enduring currents that pull us apart, fissures in contemporary society that test our interactions and bonds with others.<\/p>\n

No one understands this better than the public health workers who are tasked with addressing epidemics, experiencing up close the friction against any collective response taken on behalf of perceived public good. They have been at the forefront of creating connections in our far-flung and fractious society.<\/p>\n

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A community-sized challenge<\/h2>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to the intersection between public health and loneliness, the challenge is to find ways to identify the people who are experiencing loneliness, as we would do with any mental health issue,\u201d says Marianne Jankowski, D.H.Sc., chair of the Master of Public Health<\/a> program at The Chicago School.<\/p>\n

The surgeon general\u2019s advisory draws a distinction between the subjective feeling of loneliness and a lack of social connection, which is easier to quantify yet tricky to measure because not all social interactions are alike. The report identifies three vital components of social interaction:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Structure, or the number and types of relationships and how frequently interactions occur.<\/li>\n
  2. Function, which describes how well a person\u2019s relationships meet their needs.<\/li>\n
  3. Quality, determined by the degree to which relationships are positive or negative.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    A growing number of people are falling short of a healthy range of interpersonal contact, suggesting the need for a public role in expanding connections. Dr. Jankowski points to Melody Brown and Simone Veum, two recent graduates of her program who are working to mitigate health epidemics in their communities as possible models for this approach, one at the county level and one in the medical center of major research university.<\/p>\n

    \"Pull<\/p>\n

    Melody Brown, M.P.H., a graduate of The Chicago School and the data science and systems teams manager for acute communicable disease control for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health<\/a>, began working for the agency in November 2020. This was perhaps the most challenging time for public health workers in the last century. At the height of the pandemic, Brown helped build a new disease surveillance system for the county. She had a front-row seat as the systems were developed and applied in real life settings by a public health department.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt was a really interesting experience to see everything in action trying to determine what the data was showing us,\u201d she says, while acknowledging the unique challenges of carrying out this work as in a time of historic social disruption. \u201cIt was even more interesting because LA went with strict social distancing, closing down places and enforcing masking while I was living in Orange County where there was a very strong resistance to masking and to any kind of intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n

    As a clinical research coordinator at the Masonic Cancer Center<\/a> at the University of Minnesota, The Chicago School alumna Simone Veum, MPH, works directly with patients as well as physicians and nurses. Through this work, she has seen the effects of isolation on a patient\u2019s course of treatment. Veum\u2019s organization evaluated disparity of care for factors including location, age, income, and race. They found disparities along racial lines, particularly among Native Americans, as well as in residents of the state\u2019s rural areas.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWith that work, we saw the bigger disparities that we have in race, socioeconomic status, and location just because trials were not available in these rural areas,\u201d Veum says, adding that the people in those communities \u201care not getting the same types of assistance as people in metro areas.\u201d Loneliness and isolation therefore can become complicating factors in any number of already complex diseases.<\/p>\n

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    The role of public health<\/h2>\n

    When it comes to the role of public health officials in addressing the loneliness epidemic, the surgeon general proposes five pillars to advance social connection:<\/p>\n