Tracey Crouch. Picture by Chris McAndrew ( Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license).
Wednesday, 17 January 2018, London, UK: Her Britannic Majesty’s Government appointed a post as “Minister for Loneliness” at the suggestion of the Rt Hon Prime Minister Theresa May.
The appointed minister is Tracey Crouch, a hitherto a minor government member and Conservative MP. She shall tackle recommendations hailing from the “Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness” to create a government-wide strategy to fight against one of the society’s biggest health concerns.
Tracey Crouch, was till then Undersecretary for Sport and Civil Society in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
Britain is dealing with a serious case of loneliness. A study published in 2017 by the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness found out that over 9 million people out of Britain’s nearly 66 million inhabitants often or always feel lonely. The report also said that loneliness costs British employers over $3 billion per year.
Further governmental research revealed that about 200,000 elderly people in Britain had not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month.
Doctors say that loneliness can be worse for your health than smoking, and can lead to cardiovascular disease, depression and death. A 2012 study from the peer-reviewed Jama Internal Medicine Journal found that people 45 and older who lived alone were more likely to die than those who shared a home with others.
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