1 in 4 older Michiganders lack enough friends. That’s a health concern

• Two new national polls reveal loneliness and lack of friendships among older adults
• In Michigan, 1 in 4 older adults said they didn’t have enough friendships
• The most acute loneliness can happen while caregiving for another, especially if they have dementia, say some experts

Many have outlived their spouses, siblings and best friends. For others, physical disabilities keep them tethered at home — isolated from the social activities of the past.

One in three older Americans feel a lack of companionship “some of the time” or “often,” while 1 in 10 older Americans could not name one close friend, according to new research.

“They didn't think of even one person,” said Sarah Patterson, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research and a  demographer working with the National Poll on Healthy Aging, an ongoing survey of US adults aged 50 to 80 years.

Even among people who had friends, about 1 in 4 said they didn’t have enough friends, Patterson said.

Those are among the findings of two surveys by researchers at the National Poll — the first based on questions about friendship; the second based on questions about loneliness and social isolation. 

While loss of social connections and loneliness among seniors isn’t a new problem — a 2019 needs assessment found 1 in 5 Michiganders wanted more social connections — the National Poll set out to size up the problem on a larger scale.

The findings, released last month, are a mixed bag of good and bad news:

• Nationally, 1 in 3 older adults felt a lack of companionship “some of the time” or “often” — a rate that returns to the years before the pandemic, which spiked social isolation to 41.4%, according to a research letter published Dec. 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA.
• The feelings of loneliness, perhaps not surprisingly, were felt most often by those in poor physical or mental health, not working or on disability support.
• A separate study teased out responses from older adults in Michigan. Nearly 9 in 10 (88%) reported having at least one close friend and about 3 in 4 (76%) said they count on them for emotional support in both good and bad times. That’s the good news. On the flipside, that leaves more than 1 in 10 (12%) Michiganders without a close friend.
• And overall, nearly 1 in 4 (24%) Michiganders said they do not have enough close friends.

The reasons for social isolation and loneliness are many — the loss of loved ones, the inability to drive, physical disabilities, hearing problems that can make phone calls difficult. And then there’s the intangible — the feeling of losing control of one’s life as the body slows down, and life seems to pass with increasing speed.

Those feelings can surge for some people after retirement — even if they weren’t particularly close to coworkers.

Known as “weak ties,” these relationships are nonetheless crucial, said U-M’s Patterson.

“We often don't think about them, because they're weak or, you know, not as strong as perhaps other relationships, but they do provide important connections for people,” she said.

Moreover, work is essential to self-identity, she said: “What’s one of the first things people ask you: ‘What do you do?’”

Loneliness and early death

Loneliness or isolation are more than fleeting discomfort. They are tied to greater risks of heart disease, depression and cognitive decline, according to the National Institutes on Aging.

And loneliness and isolation, among all ages, can be life-threatening at times.

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Among all ages, people who reported being socially isolated had a 32% higher risk of dying early from any cause compared with those who were not socially isolated, according to a 2023 review published in the journal Nature of 90 studies. Another 2023 study — this one published in the British Journal of Medicine, that reviewed the lives and deaths of 458,146 participants, found a 39% increase in risk of death among people who were never visited by friends or family. 

But understanding those risks offers opportunity for change, said Kali Batchelor, a social worker at Detroit Area Agency on Aging.

Programs that connect older adults to companions or support caregivers can help fight a sense of “down and outness” and offer “reasons to feel happy.” 

And that, in turn, can improve health, Batchelor said: “We can start with the small things.”

Caregiving can be isolating

Loneliness happens even when one isn’t alone. That’s especially true when one person is caring for another — a spouse, for example — with dementia, said Sara Scholl, 78, a retired psychiatrist.

“The worst kind of loneliness is when someone’s there, but not really there,” she said.

Scholl began volunteering time at the Clinton Township Senior Center during COVID. She’d take calls from seniors who, especially during the lockdown days early in the pandemic, wanted someone to speak with.

She began “porch parties” at her house, too — gatherings that eventually moved indoors and continue to this day. Everybody brings a dish, she said: ham roll-ups, five-layer dip and vegetable trays.

It’s more difficult to forge new connections later in life — tougher to break into other friendship circles and to find the energy, Scholl said.

She and her husband used to fly without hesitation to Colorado to see their son, she said.

“It never used to be a real effort,” Scholl said, “but now we talk about it, and then we’re looking at each other and looking up at the ceiling. It seems exhausting,” she said, chuckling.

Even a phone call to an old friend can seem daunting at times.

But that hesitation begins a dangerous kind of inertia, she and others said.

“The day you say ‘I’ll skip the class today,’ or ‘Maybe I’ll go church next week instead’ — that’s the killer,” Scholl said. “You just have to make yourself do it.”