San Mateo County to dedicate $1 million to loneliness epidemic

Peninsula Family Service, a nonprofit organization that has various programs aimed at addressing loneliness particularly in the older community, hosted the latest of its Thought Leader Series events on loneliness, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Carla Perissinotto, professor at University of California at San Francisco, and a panel of community leaders.

As a member of the panel, Canepa announced that the county plans to commit $1 million of its funds to PFS, specifically to address and combat loneliness. This comes after the county passed a resolution declaring loneliness a health emergency, the first resolution of its kind in the country. Canepa said he hopes this lays a template for other counties to follow.

“It’s a historic day, because what we do moving forward will be a template, not only for the county of San Mateo, the state of California, but mark my words, throughout the United States,” Canepa said. “What we do here will be emulated.”

Perissinotto said in her keynote speech that it’s important to understand loneliness is subjective and specific to each individual, making it harder to diagnose or identify. With this in mind, she feels it’s important for individuals to at least have the vocabulary and understanding to describe social connections as the first step in addressing this epidemic.

Heather Cleary, CEO of PFS and a panelist, said that this educational aspect is a priority of the nonprofit. She believes it will equip individuals to take the next steps needed to ultimately combat any isolation they experience.

“I think with loneliness, we need to give them more of the language,” Cleary said. “We should be able to talk about anxiety, depression and loneliness and know what we’re feeling and understand it and know that there are solutions and support systems.”

Though she does maintain that this is an epidemic deserving of great attention from both health care and societal systems, Perissinotto said it should not be something that we look to solve. She said that there are some benefits to feelings of loneliness, but it becomes an issue when these feelings are all-consuming and persistent.

“I think it’s a reminder to ask, how do we reconnect with ourselves? How do we reconnect with our family? And if we don’t have family, how do we find others to connect with?” Perissinotto said.

A major goal for Perissinotto in her research is to provide scientific data to prove that loneliness is a health issue. She said she has found that about 43% of people over the age of 60 in the U.S. reported experiencing loneliness. Studies also indicate that these numbers are also high among young people ages 18 through 24.

In the Surgeon General announcement last year, the health ramifications of social isolation were equated to those of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

“There’s a very strong connection to what we experience in our everyday lives and how it gets manifested in our body,” Perissinotto said. “We have so much focus on all these other factors and our social health is being ignored, and, yet, the effect on our health is pretty dramatic.”

Perissinotto said there should be a socioecological approach to addressing loneliness, tackling the issue from multiple perspectives to address individual needs. Additionally, she said it’s important to resist any stigma around the topic, similarly to other mental health concerns.

“This should not just be a health care problem, and we also have to be careful not to pathologize loneliness,” Perissinotto said. “Yes, it has health effects, yes, it is important, but there’s not something wrong with you, and it is not your fault if you are lonely.”

Canepa hopes to take the first step in showing governmental support by financially backing the efforts, a step he says further validates the previously passed resolution. He said that passing resolutions is not enough, and funding an existing community organization is necessary to demonstrate his commitment to this issue.

Ashwin Kotwal, a panelist and assistant professor of medicine at UCSF, said that PFS already has great resources at hand and believes “we couldn’t design a better intervention.”

“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. There’s great solutions that are here in the community,” Kotwal said. “It takes scaling and funding, and we’re making huge steps in the right direction.”

Cleary said that she is grateful for the support from the county to continue establishing PFS’s prominence in the community.

“We’re looking at a lot of awareness in this county and helping get out the word so people understand loneliness better,” Cleary said. “We’re also looking at augmenting our existing suite of services to support more community members with what we have that’s working.”

Canepa said that he is not sure exactly what pot of money the funding will be allocated from, but said he confirmed with County Executive Mike Callagy that in September, there should be an official commitment of the million dollars.

“I want to make this the big lift of San Mateo County,” Canepa said. “That’s clearly my focus, really doubling down through investments. We can’t expect these community-based organizations, nonprofits to do it without the resources, and we’re going to do that here.”

ana@smdailyjournal.com

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