2024 is going to be a big year for research. I’m about to embark on a Churchill Fellowship to study why chronic loneliness has become a silent epidemic worldwide. I will be investigating why severe isolation and weak social connections correlate with heart disease and mortality rates on a par with smoking and obesity. In May/June, my Fellowship will take me to the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and the US— countries who’ve already declared loneliness a public health emergency. I hope this research becomes a catalyst for far-reaching social change here at home. Follow the links for The Loneliness Project to learn more.
During the past 50 years, people of all ages, in all places, have embarked on a remarkable social experiment – for the first time in recorded history, great numbers of us have begun to live alone.
In Australia, chronic loneliness is at record levels amongst single young men, middle-aged divorced men, the bereaved and the elderly, especially women.
Why the exponential rise? There are some obvious reasons: we’re getting divorced more often, having fewer children and living longer. Covid threw these factors into sharp relief. And there are more subtle reasons at play — the ever-increasing digitisation of society, the rise of social media replacing face-to-face engagement and a corresponding and puzzling unravelling of connections within neighbourhoods.
I am about to embark on a Winston Churchill Fellowship to study effective community models for the treatment of chronic loneliness around the world.
In my work as a journalist and an advocate in Aged Care, I have witnessed first- hand the isolated and often invisible world inhabited by carers and the elderly.
And as a 24 year old, I was engulfed by loneliness after moving to a new job in Sydney. Home was a rented flat in an unfamiliar suburb. Work colleagues were indifferent to the new girl. On weekends, I became a lonely observer of other peoples’ happiness. In streetside cafes, I was the solitary figure contemplating the parade of couples and families. It seemed everyone but me took the comforts of belonging for granted.
The body understands severe loneliness as an emergency: it raises levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which leads to a rise in blood pressure and heart rate, poor sleep patterns, depression and cognitive decline.
The US Surgeon General has declared loneliness a public health emergency— worse for your heart than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, increasing the risk of an early death by 26%. Put simply, a lonely heart is a broken heart.
In 2024, I will be travelling to the UK, The Netherlands, Sweden and the US to study the global rise of chronic loneliness. But my research begins at home.
The latest census told us 25% of Australians are now living alone, a 17% jump since 2016. We have become a lonely nation.
If this project speaks to you, or you know someone who might benefit from The Loneliness Project, please get in touch.
Over the coming months, I hope to interview a wide range of people who have found themselves isolated from their social networks.
I’m also taking a series of photographic portraits, some of which are featured in the video attached to this project. If you would like to share your story or sit for a portrait, I’d love to hear from you.
My hope is for The Loneliness Project to become a catalyst for far-reaching social change.
“A strikingly original voice. Ros has the full writer’s arsenal. Her prose has a sensual joy.”
— Robert Drewe
Hi. Ros here.
I’m a Perth author and former television journalist of 20 years best known for my long-running weekend column in The West Australian Newspaper. My first book, Was It Something I Said —a collection of readers’ favourite columns — published by the University of WA Press— was their bestseller of the year. My first novel How to Shame the Devil, published by Night Parrot Press, went on to become a WA best seller in 2022. I’m also a big fan of short story and flash fiction. In 2021, I was awarded the UK Staunch Prize for the best flash fiction of the year from an international field. My short stories have also been published in a number of international anthologies.
In October 2023, I was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to study the epidemic of chronic loneliness sweeping the world. In 2024 I will be travelling to the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands and the US to study global best practice in the identification and treatment of severe loneliness and post-Covid isolation. My new novel manuscript Cloud Eight also runs a concurrent theme of loneliness. If you’d like to read more about my Fellowship project, click the link below.
https://www.churchilltrust.com.au/fellow/ros-thomas-wa-2023/
For the better part of 2024, you’ll find me tucked into any number of cafes around Perth and Fremantle, deep in thought, deep in coffee, writing and rewriting my sentences on an 6-year-old laptop. Here are some other facts about me. Alternatively, keep scrolling and sign up for my newsletter.