Loneliness can be as bad for your health as smoking cigarettes, according to Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former U.S. Surgeon General who worked with former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Eight Healthy NewsWorks student reporters recently conducted an in-person interview with Dr. Murthy about a variety of topics associated with loneliness and The Together Project. The Together Project seeks to help people build communities in their own lives.
Dr. Murthy wants people to open up about loneliness because of the dangers of not doing so. He explained that feeling lonely can make it harder to learn at school, lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems, and contribute to health issues such as heart disease and strokes.
“We’ve known for a long time that smoking and obesity are public health issues that impact your quality and length of life,” said Dr. Murthy who chairs The Together Project. “But what the science is now telling us is that loneliness and isolation, being socially disconnected, is also a public health issue that we should consider a priority given how common loneliness has become.”
When he was surgeon general, Dr. Murthy’s office issued a report on “the challenge of loneliness and isolation that we have in the United States.” In 2023, he issued a Surgeon General’s Report about the topic.
“The amount of time that people spend face-to-face with each other has declined. And not by a little bit, but by a lot,” he told the Healthy NewsWorks reporters. Among young people there’s been about “a 50 percent decline that we saw in the 15 years or so preceding my report. And so, when you are not with other people, you lose opportunities to dialogue, to understand each other.”
While he was surgeon general, Dr. Murthy’s work on loneliness got a lot of attention from the media, businesses, and politicians. It started a lot of conversations—among local community leaders across the United States all the way to the World Health Organization, where officials launched a Commission on Social Connection.
The Together Project wants to build on that work and “bring people together to foster a greater sense of community and connection,” Dr. Murthy said.
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Reporters for this article are Benjamin (Adaire Fit Fish) and Cassandra and Christian (Catholic Partnership Schools Healthy Courier). They were among eight Healthy NewsWorks reporters who conducted the interview with Dr. Murthy at the Philadelphia law offices of Troutman, Pepper, Locke.
Explore more from our conversation with Dr. Vivek Murthy: Watch the student-led interview and read student reflections about loneliness, connection, and what they learned from Dr. Murthy.
