How do you measure something as personal as social connection, disconnection, and loneliness in a way that holds up across very different countries? That is the challenge behind the EU Social Isolation and Loneliness (SIL) Index, a new measurement tool being developed in LONELY-EU.
The Index will have two parts. A core module will apply across all European contexts. Ancillary modules will capture aspects specific to particular countries or settings.
Before building the Index, we first need to agree on what is worth measuring. Drawing on 357 in-depth interviews in eight countries and a systematic review of more than 80,000 research articles, we have mapped 57 candidate categories that describe how people experience connection, disconnection, and loneliness.
Now we need your help to refine them. For each category, you can say whether it belongs in the core module, fits better in an ancillary module, or can be set aside.
Everyone with lived experience of social connection or loneliness, in every EU member state, is invited to take part. The survey takes about 30 to 40 minutes.
- Take the survey (access code: LONE2A)
- Researchers who prefer our original, more technical definitions can use the researcher version.
