Michael Joyce, Master of Public Health candidate at Columbia’s Mailman School, spent two months in Chile from mid-June, conducting a literature review on loneliness in older adults aged 50 and above.
Working with José Cabezas, associate researcher at Universidad Mayor’s Research Center on Society and Health (CISS according to the acronym in Spanish), Joyce analyzed data from a survey conducted in several European countries to identify risk factors that the team thought could be related to individuals in that population developing feelings of loneliness.
“Our most interesting findings were that individuals who had weaker grip strengths had higher chances of experiencing loneliness, but the effect of stronger grip on loneliness decreased with increased age,” he says.
