About the map

Social isolation and loneliness are a growing concern among the population and are associated with serious health consequences. In light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic and its implications, such as lockdowns and social distancing orders, it is important to find ways to address social isolation and loneliness. This evidence and gap map focuses on in-person interventions, delivered face-to-face, intended to reduce social isolation and/or loneliness in any age group (ex. children, young adults, older adults).

A total of 513 articles were included in this evidence and gap map. Of these, 421 were primary studies and 92 were reviews.

Eligibility criteria of included articles

Any age group.
Any setting.
The article was focused on social isolation and/or loneliness, mental health, and wellbeing.
Interventions were in-person and delivered face-to-face, and categorized as self-guided delivery (e.g., self-guided social skills training and psychoeducation), interpersonal delivery (e.g., changing cognition led by a health professional, healthcare support), community-based delivery (e.g., group activities, support group, volunteering), societal level delivery (e.g., policies on design of neighbourhoods, funding relevant research), or multi-component/complex.
Study design including one of the following: systematic reviews, primary studies with a comparison/control group, randomized controlled trials, non-randomized studies including quasi-experimental studies, controlled before-after studies, interrupted time series with at least six data points (3 before and 3 after a discrete intervention), regression discontinuity designs, or protocols of systematic reviews and eligible primary studies.

Viewing the map

This map is a matrix with intervention categories as rows and outcome categories as columns. Each cell has bubble(s) representing articles assessing the corresponding intervention and outcome. The size of the bubble is proportionate to the number of articles, with a bigger bubble indicating more articles.

In the top left-hand corner of the window there is a gear icon followed by the word ‘Filters’. Clicking on this will open a pop-up menu from the left side of the screen in which included articles can be filtered to show only the ones that correspond to a specific code, for example, all studies conducted in a specific country and/or setting.

To view the articles in a particular cell, scroll your mouse over the one of interest. This will show the total number of reviews and primary studies, segregated into critically low-quality reviews, low-quality reviews, moderate quality reviews, high quality reviews, randomized controlled trials and non-randomized studies, corresponding to that specific cell. Clicking on the cell will pull up a pop-up menu from the right-hand side of the screen where all the article titles and meta-data are shown, including a summary of the article based on the published abstract.

This evidence and gap map is helpful because it allows us to visualize the evidence – areas in which there is lots of evidence and areas in which evidence is scarce. However, it is important to note that a lot of evidence in one area does not mean it is high quality or strong evidence.

Quality of reviews is based on the AMSTAR2 quality assessment tool. Primary studies were classified as randomized controlled trials or non-randomized studies. With AMSTAR2, there are four possible ratings: high, moderate, low, or critically low-quality reviews. Critically low-quality reviews are shown in red. Low quality reviews are shown in yellow. Moderate quality reviews are shown in orange and high-quality reviews are shown in green. Randomized controlled trials are shown in purple and non-randomized studies are shown in blue.

This map was commissioned by the World Health Organization, Department of Social Determinants of Health. The lead researchers are based at the Bruyère Research Institute, and it went through the editorial process of the Campbell Collaboration.


In-Person Interventions for Reducing Social Isolation and Loneliness