Loneliness is one of the biggest public health and social challenges of our time. It affects people of all ages and has a major impact on both mental and physical health.
Most research has focused on personal characteristics or broader social factors. However, much less is known about how the places where we live, work and spend our free time influence feelings of loneliness. Understanding these place-based factors is essential because they can be improved through urban planning and community action.
goals
What we're setting out to do
Study how neighbourhood characteristics and housing influence loneliness across different stages of life.
Listen to people's experiences through interviews and photo-based activities.
Test nature and community-based interventions like Forest Bathing, Urban Walk & Talk, against a control group.
Co-create ideas with citizens, local authorities, planners and community organisations to design more welcoming neighbourhoods.
Produce recommendations and a White Paper to support urban policies that promote healthier, greener and more socially connected cities.
quotes
Word on the street
method
Four lenses,
one question.
Quantitative
Over 10,000 people (EPIPorto, Generation XXI), residential histories matched against green space, walkability, 15-minute neighbourhoods, transport, Third Places, density, crime, housing, deprivation, and pollution.
Qualitative
Interviews, mental mapping, and photo-elicitation across four neighbourhoods with contrasting environments — how a place is lived isn't always how it's measured.
Experimental
A randomized trial of Forest Bathing and Urban Walk & Talk groups against a control, over three months — can place help undo what place helped cause?
Participatory
Workshops with citizens, planners, and public authorities, designing what a prosocial, anti-loneliness place could actually look like.