LONELY-EU Policy Brief No. 2
Key findings
- Policy recommendations on loneliness should name their data sources and say whether the findings come from single studies, multiple studies, or systematic reviews.
- Recommendations should state how strong the evidence is and should not present estimates or projections as precise predictions. The brief argues that being open about uncertainty makes a recommendation more credible.
- A recommendation should fit the level of government it addresses (EU, national, or local), that level's policy competences, and its capacity to implement. Where a promising intervention exceeds current capacity, the recommendation should say so.
- Each recommendation should specify which population groups it addresses and whether the findings are expected to hold across countries or only in specific contexts.
- LONELY-EU recommendations are to state explicitly what the evidence can support, what remains uncertain, and where political judgment is required.
Executive summary
Effective policy on social isolation and loneliness depends on how research evidence is translated into action. This policy brief provides practical guidelines for formulating evidence-based policy recommendations within the LONELY-EU project. The guidelines are designed to help policymakers and policy advisors work with research evidence in a transparent, realistic, and usable way. They do not prescribe policymakers specific interventions. Instead, they clarify how evidence can inform policy choices, while acknowledging uncertainty, context, and implementation constraints. Key principles include: being explicit about the evidence base and its limits, communicating uncertainty rather than masking it, matching recommendations to policy scope and capacity, clearly specifying target groups and contexts. To support consistency and clarity, the guidelines propose a step-by-step approach from evidence to recommendation. This approach ensures that policy recommendations are grounded in research findings, explicit about trade-offs, and transparent how certain policymakers can be about the evidence. The Evidence-to-Action (E2A) Board plays a central role in this process by providing structured feedback on draft recommendations and helping align research outputs with policy needs at EU, national, and local levels. By applying these guidelines, LONELY-EU aims to strengthen the dialogue between research, policy, and practice, and to support policymakers in making informed decisions on social isolation and loneliness.
How to cite
Judith Merkies (2026). Guidelines for formulating evidence-based policy recommendations on social isolation and loneliness. LONELY-EU Policy Brief No. 2 Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18786569
