Loneliness - The Theme For Mental Health Awareness Week 2022
Mental Health Awareness Week is an annual event hosted every May by the Mental Health Foundation, when there is an opportunity for significant employers like QHS, whose majority of employees work in the community inside people’s homes, to focus on achieving good mental health. The Mental Health Foundation started the event 21 years ago. Each year the Foundation continues to set the theme, organise and host the week to the extent that nowadays the event has grown to become one of the biggest awareness weeks across the UK.
Mental Health Awareness Week in 2022 is focusing on the topic of Loneliness. Why loneliness?
Loneliness is affecting more and more persons in the UK and has had a huge impact on our physical and mental health during the pandemic. Our connection to other people and our community is fundamental to protecting our mental health and we need to find better ways of tackling the epidemic of loneliness. QHS are confident we can all play a part in this, however small or prominent. So, during 9th to 10th May 2022, the Mental Health Foundation along with ourselves will be raising awareness of the impact of loneliness on our mental well-being and the practical steps we all can take to address it.
Loneliness affects millions of people in the UK every year and is a key driver of poor mental health. The Foundation’s Mental Health in the Pandemic research has found that loneliness has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Foundation has been tracking loneliness levels in the UK during the pandemic and found the experience has been much higher with devastating impact. Loneliness has been an important factor contributing to higher levels of distress, resulting from people’s sense of isolation and reduced ability to connect with others.
Previous recent themes for the preceding 3 Mental Health Awareness Weeks were in 2019 Body Image, in 2020 Kindness and in 2021 Nature & Mental Health.
Reducing loneliness is a major step towards a mentally healthy society. QHS believes that #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek is an opportunity to get as many persons as possible in UK to focus on achieving good mental health for all, and each of us playing our part to reduce loneliness.
