Meta-analysis co-authored by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, [found that] lack of social connection heightens health risks as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or having alcohol use disorder. [Holt-Lunstad] also found that social isolation is twice as harmful to physical and mental health as obesity. . . . “There is robust evidence that social isolation significantly increases risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds that of many leading health indicators.”157
