Problematizing loneliness as a public health issue: an analysis of policy in the United Kingdom

This article presents an analysis of discourses in recent UK policy on loneliness reduction. We use Carol Bacchi’s ‘what is the problem represented to be’ approach (WPR) to explore how the problem of loneliness produces specific solutions, subject positions, and forms of responsibility. Our findings suggest loneliness is understood as a public health threat that both emerges from and causes ill health. Using Foucault’s concept of governmentality, we argue that policy discourses construct loneliness as a problem requiring governance to minimize health ‘risks.’ Loneliness is problematized as creating strain on health and social care systems, as well as the economy by reducing productivity. The projected ‘costs’ of loneliness are managed via social prescribing. Social prescribing positions GPs and link workers as guides whose role is to transfer lonely subjects away from costly healthcare settings and toward the civil sector. The policies are produced in a context of continued budget cuts which we propose may threaten the effectiveness of projects like social prescribing. Social determinants of health, closely tied to loneliness, are largely left unaddressed in favor of solutions that individualize and responsibilize lonely citizens.