The first of these tools – the interactive report can be found below. This report enables you to select a geography type from the left hand drop down menu and select the area you wish to explore from the right hand drop down menu. A interactive report will then be generated for that given area detailing a variety of risk factors that can indicate a potential for a higher prevalence of loneliness. For example demographic factors such as age, health factors, economic indicators such as unemployment rates and benefit claimants and household makeup such as living alone and also mobility issues are all displayed.
It is important to note that the indicators on display are not weighted in our loneliness portal. This does not however mean that all indicators can be viewed equally.
Research completed by Age UK has revealed that ‘bad health’ or ‘very bad health’ is the key determinant of loneliness in older people and so should be viewed differently to ‘living alone’ for example. This determinant is however only useful when looking at it through the context of older people and does not indicate loneliness in younger people.