Campaign to end loneliness

From 2021 to 2024, the Campaign to End Loneliness was generously hosted by the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, the UK’s leading authority on wellbeing evidence, policy and practice. The Centre operated from 2014 to 2024 and during this time it supported the national conversation and action on loneliness. 

Social connection is one of the most important drivers of wellbeing. For this reason, the Centre had a programme of work to understand what works to tackle loneliness and reduce inequalities. This focus on increasing the evidence base and turning this evidence into action took the form of various analyses, reports, briefings and resources. 

We are pleased to host some of the key loneliness publications from the What Works Centre for Wellbeing on our website: 

• Scoping Review on Social Relations and Wellbeing to support the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness in 2017. 
• Review of Reviews of Tackling Loneliness Interventions and its accompanying briefing to support the UK Government’s Loneliness Strategy in 2018. 
• A Brief Guide to Measuring Loneliness to help charities use the Office for National Statistics’ new loneliness measure. 
• A Conceptual Review of Loneliness and an infographic of key definitions. You can learn more on our facts about loneliness page.
• An infographic of the events which may trigger loneliness across the lifecourse. You can learn more on our risk factors for loneliness page. 
• Data analysis on how Covid-19 affected loneliness in the UK. You can learn more on our covid-19 research page. 
• An updated review of evidence on Tackling Loneliness Interventions, together with the Campaign to End Loneliness. Learn more on our loneliness evaluation page. 

You can read more about what the Centre achieved over the last ten years in understanding loneliness and connection, and their considerations for what needs to happen next in their deep-dive on loneliness blog post.