Evidence base
Journal of the American Heart Association
Effects of Objective and Perceived Social Isolation on Cardiovascular and Brain Health: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association
What it found
This American Heart Association scientific statement (2022) reviews evidence linking social isolation and loneliness to cardiovascular outcomes, finding roughly a 30% increased risk of heart attack, stroke, or related death. It reports a 29% increased risk of heart attack and/or coronary death and a 32% increased risk of stroke, and notes worse prognosis—including recurrence and mortality—among those already living with coronary heart disease or stroke. The statement explicitly flags the lack of intervention evidence as the field's central gap.
Why it matters for practice
This is a strong evidentiary base establishing association and risk magnitude, but it does not tell you what works to reduce that risk—commissioners and clinicians reaching for this to justify a specific intervention should note the authors' own caveat that intervention evidence is largely absent. Read alongside programme evaluations rather than in place of them.