California’s San Mateo County just said that they are going to make loneliness a public health emergency. As part of a decision made on January 30, the county said that loneliness was a public health emergency.
According to Supervisor David Canepa, “San Mateo County was the first in the nation to declare loneliness a public health crisis after the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution my office authored Tuesday.” He went on to say, “Being lonely is very bad for your health and is about the same as smoking a pack of cigarettes every day.”
Canepa went on to say that California should have a “Minister of Loneliness” whose job it would be to help people who are “suffering in silence.” This would help restore the important connections that were lost during the pandemic.
“When I released my Surgeon General’s Advisory on loneliness, I outlined what communities can do to promote connection,” U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy wrote in a post on X. Thank you to San Mateo County for being the first county in the U.S. to see loneliness as a public health issue.
After first talking about loneliness and how it can hurt your health, Murthy finally did it. He said it could lead to a heart attack, sadness, or even death before its time. “Being lonely is a public health emergency,” he said. “The effects are terrible for both mental and physical health.”
A lot of people talked about how technology and social media affect the places they live. They said that states should be aware of how communities have changed since the pandemic and take steps to keep people from feeling lonely in their neighborhoods.
With this announcement, California is the first state in the US to call loneliness a health issue. Other states are likely to follow suit, though.
