.png)
Why it’s so hard to answer the question What makes us happiest?
Loneliness is most common among Americas who identify as bisexual and transgender, and can leave them more vulnerable to physical and mental illnesses, according to new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That loneliness can have real effects on peoples’ health, Dr. Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and coauthor of the book “The Good Life,” told GBH’s Morning Edition co-host Paris Alston. He was not involved in the CDC study.
“People who feel on the margins, who don’t always feel included socially, for whatever reason, that those people are more likely to have higher levels of loneliness,” Waldinger said. “We get sick more often. Our immune systems don’t operate as well, so we don’t ward off infection as well if we are lonely.”
About 56 percent of people who identified as bisexual and between 56 and 64 percent of transgender people surveyed told researchers they often felt lonely. They were also more likely to report stress and a history of depression, and trans people in particular reported they did not have enough social and emotional support systems.
Diseases associated with aging, like heart disease, also appear sooner in life for people who report feeling lonely, he said.
“We think that’s because loneliness and isolation are stressful, and that stress changes our body chemistry and our body activity, to break down body systems, to make us less likely to ward off infection — all of those things that most of us take for granted,” Waldinger said.
In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness and social isolation an epidemic.
Loneliness can come in all kinds of situations, Waldinger said. Sometimes it comes with geographic isolation, or from fears and distrust of other people.
“You can be lonely in a crowd. You can be lonely in an intimate partnership. And so loneliness is a subjective experience,” he said. “But many times that includes that sense of just being different. People who are disabled have higher rates of loneliness because often they don’t feel like they’re part of the mainstream of our society.”