Madera

Laura Ferguson is the director of The Campaign to End Loneliness, a coalition of organisations and individuals working together through research, policy and campaigning to combat loneliness in older age in the UK.

into a life without their loved one. Late Spring’s website describes this as: “not a counselling service, just an opportunity for people to meet with others in a warm, friendly, and supportive environment”2_.

Case study:Roshni Asian Women’s Resource Centre

Roshni Asian Women’s Resource Centre in Sheffield offers one- to-one emotional and practical support, as well as tailored group activities, to vulnerable, isolated and lonely South Asian women living in Sheffield. The Centre’s objective is “to empower Asian women to identify their own needs, create their own solutions and make their own choices so that they have lasting improvements to the quality of their life3_”.

Considering the whole population

Social research on loneliness has identified a number of likely triggers and consequences of loneliness that specifically relate to women. It is argued that older women may be more at risk of social loneliness (missing a circle of friends) as opposed to emotional loneliness (missing a special someone)4_{. There are a}

number of ‘risk factors’ that make us vulnerable to loneliness that are more likely to occur, and combine, in older age, and some are more likely to happen to women: losing a partner or becoming a carer for another family member (58% of carers are women5_).

Women are more likely than men to live their later lives alone (60% of women over 75 live alone compared to 49% of the whole population6_{). Although living alone is not necessarily the same as}

feeling lonely, research shows that those who do live alone are more likely to be lonely7_.

Health and public health

Consideration of the whole female population shifts loneliness from social care to a broader arena. Dr Hanratty, from York University and a General Practitioner, stated in the December 2012 Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine: “For loneliness and social isolation in older adults to be taken seriously by practitioners and policy-makers, we need to… [focus] more closely on the risks to public health8_”.

Loneliness has serious, negative health impacts, with consequences for the female population. The risk of Alzheimer’s is more than doubled in lonely people compared with those who are not lonely9 _{and statistics in the UK show that two thirds of}

Women-specific solutions to loneliness?

In tackling the scourge of loneliness, it is crucial to start with the individual: women must have their needs catered for. Whereas, to understand the impacts loneliness can have on health requires a whole-population approach, including understanding the specific demographic needs of large portions of that population, such as women.

A knowledge-based response to women who are at risk of becoming lonely, or who are lonely, requires effective partnership working at a local level. Knowledge about loneliness both at population and individual level is an urgent requirement for all those who are responsible in our local areas for funding services and activities that promote and sustain our health and wellbeing as well as for those who offer and deliver services to reduce loneliness.

1 Cattan, M, White, M, Bond, J and Learmouth, A. Preventing social isolation and loneliness among older people: a systematic review of health promotion interventions.Ageing and Society,2005, vol. 25, issue 1, pp. 41–67

2 Late Spring, website viewed 14 February 2013, http://www.latespring.org.uk/ 3 Sheffield Asian Women’s Resource Centre, website viewed 19 February 2013, http://

www.roshnisheffield.co.uk/

4 Cann P and Jopling K. The challenge. Safeguarding the Convoy: a call to action

from the Campaign to End Loneliness.Age UK Oxfordshire, 2011, p.10

5 Carers UK, website viewed 14 February 2013, http://www.carersuk.org/newsroom/ stats-and-facts

6 Office for National Statistics.General Lifestyle Survey:Household Tables 2010 (Table 3.3). ONS, 2012.

7 Burholt, V. Loneliness of older men and women in rural areas of the UK,

Safeguarding the Convoy: a call to action from the Campaign to End Loneliness.

Age UK Oxfordshire, 2011, p.35

8 Valtorta, N and Hanratty, B. Loneliness, isolation and the health of older adults: do we need a new research agenda? Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2012, vol. 105, pp. 518–522

9 James BD, Wilson RS, Barnes LL, Bennett DA. Late-life social activity and cognitive decline in old age.Journal of the International Neuropsychology Society 2011, vol. 17, issue 6, pp.998-1005. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22040898 and Wilson RS, Krueger KR, Arnold SE, Schneider JA, Kelly JF, Barnes LL, Tang Y,Bennett DA. Loneliness and risk of Alzheimer disease. Archives of General Psychiatry2007, Feb; vol. 64, issue 2, pp. 234-40. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/17283291

10 Alzheimer’s UK, website viewed 14 February 2013, http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/ site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=341

“After I stopped work to care, our finances nosedived. We went from me having a good salary to living on benefits. It certainly wounded my pride. In the end that just played on my health as well”.Christine, 70, cares for her mother.1

Women outlive men in nearly all parts of the world and, as a result, outnumber their male counterparts across the globe by 100 million.2 _{But though they live longer than men and are stronger in}

number, women are likely to spend more years in poor health and/ or with a disability.3

In the developed world these demographics are reflected in the gender profile of users of health and social care. In the UK, women account for two thirds community care users over the age of 65 and three quarters of people in residential care homes.4

This is similar across OECD countries, where three quarters of people in long-term care are women.5 _{Older women are therefore}

disproportionately affected by inadequacies of care and support. Yet not only do older women show the greatest need for care but, paradoxically, they are also the main providers of it. Across OECD countries close to two-thirds of informal carers aged 50+ are women.6 _{While in developed countries, the issue of older}

women carers tends to focus on informal care provided to a family member or friend who has care and support needs, in developing countries much of the care that older women deliver is as a grandparent. HIV/AIDS and conflict, in addition to rapidly rising rates of migration, mean many older women find themselves

Older women and care: are they invisible

to the sisterhood?