Researchers from Curtin University in Perth have uncovered that Covid restrictions have exacerbated feelings of social isolation, leading to negative health outcomes which have cost Australia $2.7 billion AUD per year. This accounts for $1,565 AUD for each person who is lonely, with young people and those living on lower incomes being impacted the most. The Guardian has more.
Report co-author Astghik Mavisakalyan, an Associate Professor at the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, said lonely people had worse general and mental health outcomes. “They’re more likely to smoke, more likely to drink more and exercise less,” she said. “They see their GP more frequently, as well as visit hospitals more frequently.”
The report estimates that the overall average cost associated with each person who becomes lonely in Australia is $1,565 AUD a year.
The researchers measured social connectedness based on four key areas: the nature and frequency of people’s social interactions, available social supports, interpersonal trust, and socio-economic advantage.
“In the period from 2010 to 2018, there has been a 10% decline in connectedness,” Mavisakalyan said.
Social isolation was most prevalent among vulnerable populations, including those who are disabled, socio-economically disadvantaged, or from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, the report found.
There was a worrying link between poverty and loneliness, Mavisakalyan said. The analysis drew comparisons between individuals “who are very, very similar in terms of their host of characteristics but are different in terms of their income”.
Even when all other factors were controlled for, the loneliness gap between the richest and the poorest was significant, suggesting “poverty may also lead to the social exclusion of individuals”, Mavisakalyan said.
Women scored higher than men on social connectedness across all ages, but also reported being lonelier than men, particularly girls under 17 years-old and women older than 65 years-old.
“The figure of up to $2.7 billion AUD per year associated with loneliness provides a strong economic case for investing into initiatives that mitigate loneliness in our society,” Mavisakalyan said. “Participation in activities that create meaningful connection with others and a common purpose should be a priority.”
Unsurprisingly, face-to-face interactions and community participation dropped throughout the pandemic.
That Covid has had an outsize effect on young people “comes out very vividly in our analysis”, Mavisakalyan said.
Worth reading in full.
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BEV owners beware! Those massive batteries which power your overcomplicated sofas on wheels don’t take gas!
If the electricity grid collapses because the gas-fired generation switches off then having gas central heating and a gas cooker isn’t going to help you as the vast majority of boilers need electricity to operate and cookers have electrically-controlled gas valves.
Thanks green blob, we won’t forget you when the chickens come home to roost.
Gonna live in our campervan. Everything runs of diesel, including the induction hob, via my 3000W inverter. All considered, diesel is still a very cheap source of energy.
Got a nice recirculating shower in there, too. Water is heated directly from a diesel powered hydronic.
As an aside, if the Government hadn’t decided to socialise the cost of electricity, post the forecast Jan 1st price increase it would have been cost effective to run a diesel generator at home (if you had one) for all your domestic needs.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if people with a ‘feed-in-tariff’, courtesy of their solar panels, weren’t running a petrol generator all day fed back through the solar panel circuit, using the kWh generated & collecting £0.63 /kWh that goes through the meter. As an additional bunce, loads of older meters run backwards when exporting kWh (the makers never anticipated it happening), it’s just like when you used to ‘clock’ a car, a black & decker on the milometer & knock 25k off the mileage. So, not only do you use the kWh & get the FIT but your meter is decrement by the amount you used.
So, no lighting for anyone this winter and heating and cooking only for those who happen to use gas for this? And obviously, neither fridges nor freezers for anyone? Now, that sounds like a charming rescue plan with a high chance of succeeding.
Soon, blackout news and forecasts will be part of the daily weather report.
Presumably the graph shown displays annual totals. This site: https://grid.iamkate.com/ provides a lot more detailed content, from live to seasonal totals for each source, and the total generation over time etc.
Note that it does not classify wood chips as “renewable” – it is called “Biomass” under “other energy”. Incidentally, at 7:45 about 15% of the generation was being exported from the UK grid to other places.
It ought to be well known that solar electric output is governed by the daylight hours automatically, plus the amount of cloud cover during daylight. In the little micro power station in my place, Autumn provided about 20% of the annual total, with Winter providing 10%, and the rest being Spring & Summer.
Something to be wary of is the prospect of using “SMART” metering to move to variable pricing – in effect, like buying energy on the stock market, with the prices changing every half hour; not nice, but technically possible for some (not available at my place). Back door rationing, maybe.
Without electricity there will be no refrigeration nor financial transactions, which means supermarkets will have to close and food will spoil. Just who are the idiots in charge of net zero? A 10 year old school child could do better managing things.
Chances are that someone fed the Spectator guy a line he’s simpy repeating without putting too much thought into this (as journalists are unfortunately wont to do). If it starts with international agency it’s political propaganda to help with achieving one of the usual, worthy goals (in this case, most likely, more climate panic). All of these UN*, I* and W* institutions need to be dismantled.