Social Infrastructure’s Impact on Loneliness: Proposing a New Loneliness Index to Predict Relationship of Social Infrastructures and Loneliness

Abstract

This project aims to continue and grow the conversation about the loneliness epidemic. Loneliness, as experienced both physically and mentally, has major, significant impacts on our individual and societal health. Social infrastructures have been proven to be strong loneliness mitigation tools, as they create a physical space of connectedness and belonging within a community. To see whether the number of and distance to social infrastructures could predict a lower experienced loneliness in a neighborhood, I propose a new loneliness index, composed of 13 social variables that have been proven to be indicative of loneliness, to measure loneliness on a census tract level. This project maps social infrastructures (libraries and parks) and a new loneliness index (created through the Composite Index tool in ArcGIS Pro) in Seattle, Washington, to observe the impact of social infrastructures on loneliness in a metropolitan area. The results show that libraries have little to no correlation to a census tract’s reported loneliness on the new loneliness index, while parks have some correlation. This project suggests future research should observe both the quality of social infrastructures as well as the quantity of social infrastructures in a city, as well as implement further individual measures of loneliness, such as a participatory map of reported loneliness, to better understand the impact social infrastructures can have on mitigating and reducing loneliness in a major city.