A community-based intervention to reduce loneliness in young adults: components and implementation

Abstract Background Loneliness is recognised as an urgent public health concern, associated with adverse mental and physical health outcomes. While most interventions are aimed at older adults, young and working-age adults have been identified as being at risk for persistent loneliness. Despite this, there remains limited understanding of the evidence base for interventions targeting this age group. This paper explores the implementation of The Great Friendship Project (TGFP), a community-based intervention aimed at reducing loneliness among young and working-age adults in urban areas. Methods A logic model of change - a widely used tool in programme evaluation - was developed to illustrate the activities, outputs, and outcomes of the intervention. The logic model was co-designed with the founder of TGFP, a focus group of former TGFP members, and academic researchers. In addition, we analysed data gathered by TGFP on the demographic characteristics of a consecutive series of 1374 new members. Results The logic model of the intervention provided a framework to guide the evaluation of TGFP intervention. Among the 1374 members of TGFP, more than half of the members are from ethnic minority groups (53.2%) and male (55.8%). Members attended between 1 and 63 events, with almost 90% attending up to five events. Conclusions These results highlight that TGFP is reaching and supporting the sub-groups that are particularly vulnerable to loneliness and/or who did not typically seek help. We believe that TGFP can lead to reduced loneliness levels by fostering social connections across diverse social and economic groups in urban areas. We hope that TGFP's logic model offers a framework for evaluating similar interventions and informs broader policy initiatives aimed at addressing loneliness on a wider scale. Key messages • A community-based intervention tackling loneliness among young adults is reaching at-risk groups who may not usually seek help. • We present a logic model of the intervention to guide evaluation and inform policy on tackling loneliness.