 Yes, I am really pleased that I am able to share some of the work I've been doing on social isolation and loneliness. And let me introduce first of all my colleague here Nancy Newell. She's an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Branton University. So the two of us have been working on this topic, who for quite a few years now probably well over 10 years in some form with the other. And we'll keep going with it. Starting off with some definitions, just so we're all on the same page. What do I mean by social isolation and loneliness. We have two people and I called them here, Lizzie and Tom. And the circles around those two people reflect their social networks. So the squares within the circles are the people in the social network. The people within the small circle are the people that are really the person feels sees a lot is close to the outer circle are also important people in the person's life and the different colors reflect different people, for example, red is for the partner a spouse and the blue is for children grandchildren. And so we carry these networks through life with us. Now, when you look at the two networks that really very different so Lizzie has a lot of people in her social network. Tom has very few so probably we could argue. You might agree with me that Lizzie might not be socially isolated because she does have a lot of people around her that she let's say we've asked her that she sees a lot she has a lot of contact with because Tom does not. So social isolation then is an objective state of a lack of social contact it's something we can count we can count the number of people in the network. We can ask about frequency of contact and we can say that Lizzie let's say is not socially isolated where this Tom is loneliness on the other hand is a feeling it is an unpleasant feeling of being disconnected of not having enough contact not the type of contact that one would like. So looking at Tom, not a lot of people in the social network. Really, we could say socially isolated, we don't know whether he's lonely, maybe he's actually not lonely at all maybe he's just happy with having very few people in the network. Lizzie on the other hand, even though she has a lot of people in her social network might actually be lonely, we would have to ask her the saying as the saying goes we can be lonely in a crowd. Now, we know from a lot of research for many decades over many decades that social isolation and loneliness, both of them are health risks. And here just a few examples. They're associated with the decreased immune system increased risk of heart disease and stroke increased risk of dementia increased risk of depression loneliness in particular is very strongly related to depression and lower quality of life. We also know that social isolation is related to mortality so it increases the risk of mortality as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Now that statistic that piece of information has been quite a bit in the media during the pandemic especially, even though we have known this for over 40 years since the early 80s so it's not a new finding at all. So we know social isolation and loneliness are bad. We've known that for a very long time the real challenge though is how do we connect people. What do we do about it. And that is where our work Nancy and my work has focused on so how can we get that socially isolated socially or lonely person socially engaged. And connected to the very many programs that are actually available out there that are that could provide some social contact. So, our project which we're calling targeting isolation has two main objectives. One is to provide evidence based information about social isolation loneliness, but also about other aspects of aging about older adults and then train community connectors to identify and refer at risk older adults to resources in the community. Now, what do I mean by community connectors. A community connector is a person in the community you as part of their everyday work is in contact with older adults who might be socially isolated or lonely. So think about a pharmacist pharmacists have a lot of contact with a lot of people. And they might actually be an older person's only contact as they pick up medication so that might be a person who could say well wait a minute there seems to be something wrong here. This person maybe is chatting a little bit too much what's going on. I'm not sure. And so that person then that pharmacist that community connector could say. There's warning signs here. I'm not sure what to do this is not really my job right and I'm, you know, I'm a pharmacist I'm not a counselor. And then they would refer that person over to a community organization who could assess needs, and then connect the person with the appropriate resources. Now we can do this project alone. So we are partnering with community organizations. And that is forming what we call the aging well together coalition. And let me just briefly introduce the organizations activating active aging in Manitoba is an organization that focuses on active living healthy aging. Manitoba Association of senior communities focuses also on social engagement that's an umbrella organization that helps active living centers and seniors groups with their programming. We have transportation option network for seniors. Tons that focuses as the name suggests on transportation. Transportation is a really important piece of this whole puzzle because what if their programs out there in the community but the person can't get to them. And then they're stuck. So we need to also work on transportation and then we have a no support services for older adults, and they provide specialized support services for all the people. They have a couple of examples they have a really interesting program called senior centers without walls it is programming for site socially isolated older adults over the phone. So all kinds of things that people can call in and have programming over the phone. So we have a befriending programs also a volunteer will will go into a person's home to chat with them and just for some friendly visiting. And overall we also try to raise awareness of the issue of social engagement importance of social engagement and as well as programs and so on. So that's us. Marketing isolation. So that's the work that Nancy and I do is very much based on CLSA. So CLSA provides a foundation for our work and why is CLSA so important for us well first of all it's Canadian data, and that's super important. In some cases, given what we're interested in some of the basic statistics that we're interested in we can also have Manitoba specific data for our partner that's partners that's really important because they know what's going on right here in Manitoba and some of it we can even look at Winnipeg you know what's happening here. What is the picture of social isolation loneliness look like right here. CLSA also has a lot of questions on it and and and thanks so much for responding to all of the questions that we ask you, but there are questions around social networks, social support social participation. All of those are really important for us and loneliness of course. In terms of our work, those are really, really important. You just a flavor of some of the things that is important for our partners. So, just to know how common our social isolation and loneliness in Manitoba. By the way, these numbers will not be that different in other localities in other provinces but again for our partners it's particularly important to know how to know Manitoba figures. So, about 20% of Manitobans age 65 plus are socially isolated about 25% say they are lonely and this is pre COVID and about one in three so about 30% something like that want to participate in more social activities. But last piece of information is important again for our partners because it suggests that people actually do want to be more socially engaged. There's a, there's an opportunity there. If we only could get them hooked up. We know life changed during COVID. We all know that we have gone through it and I think all of us have to some extent did to some extent become socially isolated. Many of us became lonely and CLA say has been, as was pointed out by Tina has been incredibly useful to show what just the magnitude of that impact was and so as we look at Manitoba figures. Again pre COVID we have about 20% socially isolated people and then it goes to about a third 30% plus during COVID. Now, in and of itself, that doesn't surprise us because we all know that it was a real challenge to live through COVID. What is interesting though is how this will change over time as we get new data in so as we as you are willing to participate again in being interviewed, how do the numbers change are people recovering from COVID. And perhaps even more importantly, are there certain groups of people who do not go back to normal. And that's what we need to know about. And that the organizations that we're working with need to know about where are the gaps where the challenges. We've also done research on risk factors so both our research and other people's research shows that social isolation loneliness is more common among people living low income those with health problems. We're experiencing life transition and losing a spouse a partner is a very major impact, for example. So, in order to, to group the, these, these risk factors we've come up with the acronym helps so knowing the risk factors helps. And we've came up, we've come up with that just as a way of helping those community connectors. Remember some of these risk factors. And so as again briefly they are health problems environmental factors would include things like having access to transportation, living in a safe neighborhood. There are other life transitions, again, I mentioned loss of a spouse but there are other life transitions to the really important, like becoming a caregiver can be very isolating, losing a driver's license can make a big difference. There are psychological risk factors for example what was self esteem and some people have certain negative ways about thinking about their relationships even if they have relationships and that can be detrimental. There are certain social groups, like, for example, people on low income who are more likely to be socially isolated on lonely. Another thing we have been working on a great deal is to say, how can we, how can we tell our community connectors who they should refer to a community organization. So, yes risk factors are important to know about, but not everybody who has a risk factor will be socially isolated and lonely so can we be more specific. And we have done Nancy and I quite a lot of research using CLSA on that but also combined with other people's research, we have once again come up with a an acronym show somebody you cared. Let's say you see somebody that you think has some of those risk factors maybe there's some some warning signs there's some signal something is not right here. What is it that you should look out for the sea stands for connections that relates to the loneliness. Does the person want more social contact. Are they lonely. They want to directly ask them if they're lonely, but you could ask, would you like to be around more people activities does the person lack meaningful activities. And the question here might be, what do you do for fun, would you like to do other things, other than what you currently doing relationships. That social isolation. How much contact is the person have with friends family so how often do you see your family or friends might the family members might be a question here. Does the person have an emergency contact so are there social supports there if they're needed. And dwelling is, are they living alone, are they living in a safe neighborhood. We wanted to just address a question that somebody sent our way, and that has to do with living alone and the question was is living alone, different from being living with a spouse. And my answer would be it depends, we have it here as one of the questions to explore, but in and of itself living alone does not need to be a problem, depending on the social network that the person has around them so. The person can live alone but be very strongly socially connected, and have social supports right now might have people to check in every day on them. They might go out a lot so there's a very strong social network where there is a problem is when a person lives alone and has no good social network and social support system. So, think about what would happen if the person falls, would somebody notice. Or as we've seen some in some recent disasters natural disasters like heatwaves. They were all the people living alone and nobody knew, nobody realized that they were in danger, and some of people died. So, living alone is not the only thing. Of course, it depends really on other factors the social support and social network around them. So, what we tell our community connectors then if if you see some of these signs, the person seems to be lacking the connections. If three or more questions are causing you concern, refer the person over to a community organization. We have and targeting isolation then we have prepared fact sheets so everything I talked about is on our website you can access it there it has more information that I could go through we have reports. We have resources, various resources we also have videos we you can meet team up targeting isolation Manitoba who will talk you through some of the things I've talked about like risk factors on so on. Just to note that because we're working in Manitoba our, some of the stats, the facts are Manitoba specific. So, just be aware of that if you're accessing the website from outside some of it is general but some of it will be Manitoba specific. And to train community connectors we've also developed workshops so Nancy and I have given workshops we've given them for for example pharmacists occupational therapists physiotherapists and so on. But we've also developed e learning modules again they're accessible if you're interested in looking that you can look at them. One is for healthcare professionals like pharmacists. One is for community volunteers and again goes through what is social isolation. What are some of the risk factors what are some of those signs, and then there's the referral information now. The caveat with this is that it is Manitoba focused, we are telling community connectors in Manitoba to refer over to a no support services for all their adults the organization that we're partnering. Why a no well because they're a partner of ours, but also because they have the capacity to call back the person when they're getting a referral, a referral. So when they get a referral they can call the person, they have the capacity to assess needs and they can then get the person in touch with whatever resources the person actually needs. So if you're looking at it from outside I would encourage it outside Manitoba I would encourage you to think about which organization would you refer somebody to, is there an organization in your community that might make a lot of sense. So, that's it for me. Thank you so much for participating in CLSA. Our work would not be possible without you. And for any of the information I talked about or other information go to targeting isolation.com, or you can contact me directly.