Blog Post: Capturing the Truth Behind Causes of Death

The most recent Coalition to End Social Isolation and Loneliness blog post examines how social isolation and loneliness may directly or indirectly contribute to mortality. Author Dr. Carla Perissinotto of University of California, San Francisco discusses the importance of primary prevention and the need for death statistics to capture a broader array of data. “Despite what we have seen before our eyes, I have wondered how much death statistics truly capture the deaths caused directly or indirectly by social isolation and loneliness. In my own practice, it was not until a few months ago, that for the first time, I listed social isolation as a contributing cause of death.  I realized that prior to this, I was not doing justice to my patients and the life circumstances that contributed to their death.”