WHAT ISOLATION TEACHES US ABOUT LIFE IN THE REGIONS

At no other time in recent history has the issue of social isolation received such attention in the wider community. The COVID-19 crisis has given many people a taste of what some struggle with on a daily basis. My colleagues and I have studied social isolation amongst older Australians, with a focus on regional communities. This research included a cross-sectional survey of older Australians that focused on social connections and wellbeing.

Read the results of this study in our paper ‘Regional variation in social isolation amongst older Australians’ (Beer et al. 2016), which considers community-building activities in addressing the impacts of social isolation, including the role of urban design, and suggests that there is a need to supplement the national overview presented there through more detailed studies focused on individual localities.