What is loneliness, and why has it been declared an epidemic?


By AGENCY

Loneliness and isolation have always been a staple of the human condition, but last year, the United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a 71-page advisory declaring it an epidemic. — Photo: YANA KUZNETSOVA/Dreamstime/TNS

Monica Imani McCullough was an extremely shy child. She lost her father when she was a teen and years later watched her mother lose a battle with Parkinson’s disease.

She survived an emotional divorce, and in 2022 she was diagnosed with follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

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