Working-age adults with disabilities reported higher levels of loneliness in contrast to people without disabilities, Brown researchers found. The study surveyed over 3,800 working-age adults with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 64.
About two-thirds of adults with disabilities in a national survey said that they “often experienced severe loneliness.”
Higher loneliness could amplify existing health disparities that disabled people face, according to Maggie Salinger, an assistant professor of medicine and co-author of the paper.
“Loneliness is a widely-recognized risk factor for morbidity and mortality, but there is relatively little research about loneliness in people with disabilities, especially those younger than 65,” Salinger wrote in an email to The Herald.
“This population may be predisposed to loneliness, since disability is the byproduct of social and structural barriers that restrict access to full societal participation,” she added.
Salinger — in collaboration with Melissa Clark, a professor of obstetrics & gynecology and health services, policy and practice — inspected survey data from October 2019 to January 2020 as well as October 2023 to February 2024.
The surveys asked working-age people with disabilities how often they felt “a lack of companionship, left out or isolated,” Clark said in an email to The Herald.
Ongoing feelings of loneliness for this population were almost three times more common than previous findings for the general adult population, she added. The severe amounts of loneliness were consistent across different types of disabilities and the separate surveys.
Kim Fernandes, an assistant professor of anthropology who was not involved in the study, added that “these statistics are not surprising, particularly in the … sociocultural context in which loneliness is produced and what it means to be a working-age person with a disability.”
Fernandes explained that this may be a result of an inflexible workday or social isolation that comes with not being able to attend inaccessible activities.
“You just may not have the energy to go out and do a social activity for work, and also then continue to work,” they explained. “There’s many reasons why the traditional workplace can be a lonely environment.”
This survey emphasizes the importance of more research into working-age adults with disabilities, Salinger added, to understand “drivers of the disproportionately high loneliness burden in this population and to mitigate long-term health consequences of loneliness.”
“We hope that this study shows how critical it is for public health officials to consider inclusivity and accessibility in their design and implementation of loneliness interventions,” she said.
