Skip to main content

L.A. Begins Initiative To Help Older Adults Avoid Loneliness Amid COVID-19

Martha Flores, 80, receives meals at her Sherman Oaks home on Thursday, March 19, 2020 from the Valley InterCommunity Council as she follows orders not to go out during the coronavirus outbreak. | Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News
Support Provided By

LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The Los Angeles Department of Aging and Element3 Health today jointly announced the launch of the End Loneliness Initiative, a collaboration aimed at curtailing the rise of social isolation and loneliness in older adults during COVID-19 Safer at Home measures.

Loneliness and isolation were a significant factor in older adults' health before COVID-19 and have been exacerbated by the pandemic, Department of Aging General Manager Laura Trejo said.

“To protect themselves against the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles, older adults find themselves increasingly cut off from their friends, families and communities,” she said. “This has put them at increased risk of social isolation, loneliness and depression. The End LonelinessInitiative could not have come at a better time. We are excited to work with the End Loneliness Initiative to provide older adults with social activities that they enjoy and can do from home.”

As a founding partner of the End Loneliness Initiative, the Department of Aging said it will help provide free solutions to provide meaningful, safe social connections for the region's 1.2 million older adults.

Element3 Health spearheaded the initiative to address the loneliness epidemic, focused on providing older adults with free access to social activities they enjoy, such as virtual chess, embroidery, dance and tai chi, to keep them engaged while social distancing.

Social isolation and loneliness carry the same health risk as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, as well as an increased risk of premature death, officials said.

“As devastating as COVID-19 is, formidable health consequences are still looming on the horizon,” Element3 Health Chairman and CEO David Norris said. “Active, healthy older adults have been finding themselves socially isolated, physically inactive and alone. If we don't do something now, a ‘second pandemic’ of heart disease, cancer and other loneliness and isolation- related illnesses will hit us in the years to come.”

The End Loneliness Initiative includes a coalition of health industry leaders, healthy-aging experts and others who are dedicated to ending social isolation and loneliness in older adults, according to the Department of Aging.

Agencies, companies and organizations interested in joining the End Loneliness Initiative can contact endloneliness@element3health.com.

More information is available at endlonelinessinitiative.com.

Top Image: Martha Flores, 80, receives meals at her Sherman Oaks home on Thursday, March 19, 2020 from the Valley InterCommunity Council as she follows orders not to go out during the coronavirus outbreak. | Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images

Support Provided By
Read More
Nurse Yvonne Yaory checks on a coronavirus patient who is connected to a ventilator. | Heidi de Marco/California Healthline

No More ICU Beds at the Main Public Hospital in the Nation’s Largest County as COVID Surges

As COVID patients have flooded into LAC+USC in recent weeks, they’ve put an immense strain on its ICU capacity and staff — especially since non-COVID patients, with gunshot wounds, drug overdoses, heart attacks and strokes, also need intensive care.
Vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Your No-Panic Guide to the COVID-19 Vaccine: Is It Safe, and When Can I Get It?

Here's what we know about the COVID-19 vaccines and how they are being distributed in L.A. County.
Nurse Michael Lowman gets the first dose of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine from nurse practitioner Christie Aiello at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, CA, on Dec. 16, 2020. | Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty

Orange County Gets First Doses of COVID-19 Vaccine

A Providence St. Joseph Hospital nurse was the first person in Orange County today to be vaccinated for COVID-19, shortly followed by other health care workers.