MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION BY THE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT, PUBLIC HEALTH AND FOOD SAFETY
Loneliness is being increasingly recognised as a public health concern due to its detrimental effects on individual wellbeing and social cohesion. According to a report conducted by the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) in 2018, 18% of Europeans experience social isolation. In this regard, what steps should the EU take to combat loneliness?
Submitted by: Fay Mills, Ensar Esen, Dewran Murad, Luying Wang, Beverly Boahene (Chairperson, NL), Maro Kaisaridi (Chairperson, GR)
The European Youth Parliament aims to ensure that loneliness and its consequences are recognised as the serious public health issue they pose. It hopes to ensure that policies dedicate adequate focus to this issue, and alleviate the stigma surrounding it, taking into account all affected groups,
because
- Loneliness and social isolation pose a serious threat to public health, proving to be as dangerous as smoking and alcohol consumption,
- There is a lack of awareness and public dialogue around loneliness, which is tightly connected to the stigma that surrounds this issue, discouraging affected people from acknowledging their state and reaching out for support,
- Current policies do not take into account loneliness or its impacts,
- Usually loneliness is wrongly associated with illnesses or old age, exacerbating the reluctance of affected individuals towards seeking help,
- Loneliness has rapidly increased in the European Union (EU) after the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic.
Therefore, the European Youth Parliament,
- Calls upon Member States to provide adequate support to citizens severely impacted by the negative effects of loneliness through the establishment of public support centres with trained experts on loneliness;
- Encourages Ministries of Education of Member States to incorporate loneliness courses in their school curricula, in order to ensure that citizens are aware of the issue from a young age;
- Encourages Member States and their local communities to create public events that include mental health workshops and activities directed towards lonely people;
- Urges Member States to launch loneliness awareness campaigns targeted at young adults as the age group that is most at risk, in order to alleviate the stigma surrounding the issue and introduce them to organisations, such as loneliness in Europe, that can offer support to the lonely;
- Requests the European Commission’s Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG Connect) to partner with TikTok Europe and influencers for a social media campaign on loneliness in order to address stereotypes surrounding loneliness and to encourage people to open up about thei0r struggles;
- Requests Member States to allocate funding from the European Social Fund + (ESF+) to programmes that encourage connections between lonely people in all Member States, such as the Dutch initiative Ventilen – Gør ungdommen mindre ensom;
- Urges the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion to create a website that holistically and interactively presents the issue of loneliness;
- Calls upon Member States to make it mandatory for healthcare workers to receive adequate training on loneliness in order to properly care for their patients.