SynthesisBritish journal of health psychology2026
Impact of loneliness on health in healthy populations: A meta-analysis.
Synthesis in British journal of health psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Impact of loneliness on health in healthy populations: A meta-analysis.British journal of health psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Self-initiated strategies for managing loneliness: insights from two large-scale surveys.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- "A small change can make a huge difference": teachers' perceived roles, barriers, and strategies in tackling loneliness in schools.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesPrevious meta-analyses have shown that loneliness is associated with poor health (r = -.35) and sleep challenges (r = .29). However, that work is confounded by the inclusion of unhealthy populations, with chronic conditions, such as HIV, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and severe mental illness. This pre-registered meta-analysis (PROSPERO CRD42019119135) examined whether loneliness is linked to poorer health in healthy populations.
designMeta-analysis.
methodsPsycINFO, ERIC, PubMed, and Web of Science were searched for articles before January 2024 to examine the association between loneliness and health outcomes (categorized as general health, physical health [functional disability], sleep function, sensory acuity, and health service use) for healthy samples.
resultsA total of 167 articles (303,643 participants; 334 effect sizes; 158 independent samples) from 36 countries were included in the meta-analysis. Loneliness is associated with worse health for healthy populations (r = -.22), with the largest effect (r = -.23) for general health. Loneliness was not related to health service use for healthy populations. Heterogeneity was substantial, with only 7.2% of the total variance attributable to sampling error, indicating that over 92% of the variability in effect sizes reflected true differences across studies.
conclusionsHigher loneliness was associated with poorer health for healthy people. There are limited studies using (1) objective measurements of health outcomes in relation to loneliness, and (2) studies exploring the association among young people, highlighting a need for more work in those areas.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.