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Britain has appointed a minister for loneliness to take forward the work of murdered lawmaker Jo Cox and tackle the isolation felt by more than one in 10 people in the UK.
Sports minister Tracey Crouch will take on the new role, in addition to her existing job, and develop a strategy to address the problem, which research has linked with dementia, early mortality and high blood pressure.
Past studies have found chronic loneliness to be more life-threatening than obesity and smoking. Psychologists have come to call the global trend of isolationism a "loneliness epidemic."
"We should all do everything we can to see that, in Jo's memory, we bring an end to the acceptance of loneliness for good," British Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement. "For far too many people, loneliness is the sad reality of modern life."
Cox was murdered by a right-wing extremist in 2016, after being in parliament for little more than a year.
The majority of people over 75 live alone, and about 200,000 older people in the UK have not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month, according to government data.