Soledades of Avilés

Awareness of the importance of social relationships in people’s lives—and the shortcomings in this area—has been growing in recent years. This trend goes hand in hand with changes in aspects related to personal relationships, as well as a growing body of evidence linking various relational factors to a wide range of health and well-being outcomes.

Given its importance, policies have been developed that emphasize the need to address loneliness. By the end of 2023, the World Health Organization had identified social connection as a key factor for public health, highlighting the need to incorporate the relational dimension into public policy planning.

Within this framework, the Avilés Municipal Plan is being launched, through which the Department of Senior Citizens and Healthy City aims to identify and intervene to reduce and prevent the experience of loneliness among older adults in the municipality of Avilés.

Objectives

The main objective of the project is to provide technical support in developing actions to address loneliness. In particular, the specific objectives to be addressed collaboratively include:

• Conducting a baseline assessment of loneliness among people aged 75 and older in the municipality of Avilés.
• Defining a process and protocol for identifying and conducting individual assessments of older adults who experience loneliness.
• Building partnerships with various stakeholders and sectors of Avilés society.

Methodology

The methodological framework for this phase of the project involves a quantitative approach to the phenomenon of loneliness. Specifically, an assessment will be conducted of the situation of people over 75 living alone in Avilés with the aim of identifying instances of loneliness and intervening in them. To this end, we will work with a multidisciplinary team composed of healthcare professionals, the psychosocial team from the municipality of Avilés, and representatives from the third sector to identify the inclusion criteria that would define the priority cases of loneliness requiring intervention.