The Campaign to End Loneliness has commissioned a review led by a team at the London School of Economics to find out more on the value for money of investing in any measure to prevent or reduce loneliness and/or social isolation in older people. To help inform the review we would welcome information and /or reports on evaluations of measures taken in the UK to address loneliness that have included an assessment of value for money. This could include evaluations that have measured the costs of investing in actions against loneliness/ social isolation and compared them with the potential (social) return on investment, for instance by measuring and valuing the impacts on the subsequent use of health, social care and other public services, or on the need for informal family care. Other evaluations that we are interested in might in addition to changes in costs, also look at the impact on outcomes, for instance reporting the cost per unit of loneliness reduction gain or improvement in quality of life or wellbeing. Sometimes these evaluations are known as economic evaluations, as well as cost effectiveness, cost utility or cost benefit analyses.

Please send any reports or information to Kellie Payne at kellie@campaigntoendloneliness.org.uk and she will pass it on to our researchers at the LSE.