Measuring loneliness as standard at a local level is vital to improving the UK’s service provision, to understanding loneliness, and to reaching the most isolated lonely people.
Starting to measure your impact on loneliness might seem a small change in policy, but will lead to improvements in evaluations and practical, every-day attempts to reduce loneliness.
Page Summary
In 2018 after government recommendations, the ONS undertook a process of scoping and consultation on loneliness measures of which the Campaign to End Loneliness was a participant. As a result, they have recommended the “gold standard” in measuring loneliness is to use both direct and indirect measures of loneliness where possible.
UCLA loneliness scale
They recommend four questions to capture different aspects of loneliness. The first three questions are from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) three-item loneliness scale. The last is a direct question about how often the respondent feels lonely, currently used on the Community Life Survey. Using the UCLA scale ensures that loneliness is being measured using a scale that has been assessed as valid and reliable and the single item allows the respondent to say for themselves whether they feel lonely which provides insight into the subjective feeling of loneliness.
| Recommended measures of loneliness for adults | ||
| Measures | Items | Response categories |
| The three-item UCLA Loneliness scale |
1. How often do you feel that you lack companionship? |
Hardly ever or never, Some of the time, Often |
| 2. How often do you feel left out? |
Hardly ever or never, Some of the time, Often |
|
| 3. How often do you feel isolated from others? |
Hardly ever or never, Some of the time, Often |
|
| The direct measure of loneliness |
How often do you feel lonely? | Often/always, Some of the time, Occasionally, Hardly ever, Never |
Source: Office for National Statistics
The reason for asking the four questions together is that the stigma of loneliness may mean that people underreport their feelings if asked directly and the other questions help us understand other aspects that contribute to a person’s feelings of loneliness. To get the best understanding of whether someone is feeling lonely it is recommended you ask all four questions, however if you only have space for one question you should use the fourth question, ‘How often do you feel lonely?’
In 2015 we published our guidance on measuring loneliness, to detail how to measure your service’s impact on service-users’ levels of loneliness. This guidance introduces three scales and the ways in which you can use them. These scales have been tried and tested in academic studies. In addition to the UCLA scale and one item scale used in the national indicator the Campaign’s guidance also features two other scales: The Campaign to End Loneliness Measurement tool and The De-Jong Giervald 6-Item Loneliness Scale.
Through extensive research and consultation, we developed our own scale, The Campaign to End Loneliness Measurement tool, which you can read about in our measurement guidance. We have kept the questions of the scale positively worded and they do not make explicit mention of loneliness, so as to be as inclusive and widely useful as possible. Our scale is based on the conceptualisation of loneliness as a subjective state, taking place when there is a mismatch between the social contact we have, and the social contact we want.
The De-Jong Giervald scale is sometimes preferred to the national indicator because it separates out different types of loneliness: social and emotional. In this 6-item scale, 3 statements are made about ‘emotional loneliness’ and 3 about ‘social loneliness’. (Social loneliness (SL) occurs when someone is missing a wider social network and emotional loneliness (EL) is caused when you miss an “intimate relationship”. The focus on both emotional and social loneliness produces results that can give insight into why someone might be experiencing loneliness. For example, are they lonely because they’d like larger social networks, or is it because of the loss of a key relationship?
All scales presented and explained in our guidance ask different questions, but produce similarly accurate results. Each scale has its own scoring and interpretation system to use alongside the questions or statements for respondents. In our guidance, we clearly explain how to use each scale effectively.
We have published guidance specifically on measuring loneliness in older people The missing millions report: )
Our web resource Loneliness and social isolation: guidance for local authorities and commissioners provides guidance for adult social care, clinical commissioning groups and public health teams on planning how to address the loneliness experienced by local older people.
Our Research and Policy Forum regularly holds learning events involving world -renowned experts in this area on how best to evaluate loneliness. Watch our recent events to find out more.
Our host organisation. the What Works Centre for Wellbeing has produced a brief guide to measuring loneliness
More information
In the United Kingdom, there are an estimated one million, one hundred thousand people over the age of 65 who are chronically lonely. Our Missing Millions report looks at how best to identify these missing million lonely older people.
We also published a practical guide The missing million a practical guide to identifying and talking about loneliness to accommpany this publication which looked at how best to identify and target lonely people in practice.
How can we measure loneliness using technology? (Dec 2022) Jessica Rees, Research Associate from the Institute of Gerontology at King’s College London, explains more in a guest blog for the Campaign to End Loneliness about the use of technology to detect or predict loneliness in older adults.
Tackling loneliness in practice
