As Professor Brian Lawlor retires, we recognise how his clinical and research work in old age psychiatry led to influential contributions in an emerging field: loneliness research.

Professor Lawlor recently retired from Trinity College Dublin. He had worked as a psychiatrist of old age at St James’s Hospital, where he was the Founding Director of St James’s Memory Clinic, with dementia and cognitive decline as his central clinical and research focus. With increased understanding of the aetiology of dementia, he began to focus on risk factors, and co-established the the Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity College Dublin in 2015.

Risk factors of dementia and health in older adults can include psychosocial processes. In 2008, Professor Lawlor and Dr Conor O’Luanaigh demonstrated that loneliness warranted medical attention because of its association with health outcomes in older adults.

Building upon this research with Prof Jeannette Golden and Prof Ronan Conroy, he examined loneliness prevalence across Dublin’s older population, demonstrating its role in predicting mood and wellbeing.

As the connection between loneliness and outcomes in later life became clearer, his investigations expanded. Through the TRIL project (2010-2012), he explored loneliness as a risk factor for sleep and social support. Additionally, the Dublin Healthy Ageing Study examined links between loneliness and vascular health as well as cognitive functioning – natural extensions of his core interests, providing much needed evidence to understand the intersections of loneliness and health. Professor Lawlor’s work on loneliness expanded further in the 2010s to focus on specific subgroups. In DESTRESS, working with Dr Maria Pertl, he investigated how stress and loneliness emerge among dementia caregivers. Similarly, in the RelAte project, he explored loneliness and nutrition among older adults living alone, and in Only the Lonely, he explored the potential for volunteer-led programs to reduce loneliness.  

The COASTAL study with LTRN Chair Dr Joanna McHugh Power and LTRN member Dr Caoimhe Hannigan explored lived experiences of loneliness among rurally isolated older adults in Ireland, examined aetiological theories, investigated loneliness among dementia caregivers, and studied befriending interventions as solutions to decrease loneliness and its effect on health.

Professor Lawlor continued to explore the epidemiology of loneliness, and loneliness as a health risk factor, within the past ten years. He  examined loneliness as a contributor to dementia risk in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and developed the “social asymmetry” concept with Dr Joanna McHugh Power – contextualising loneliness alongside social isolation to predict psychological wellbeing and cognitive function. Their research included cross-cultural comparisons bettering the understanding of both Irish and international meanings of loneliness as well as exploring  connections between loneliness and social withdrawal, sustained attention and depression, and hearing over time.

From 2018, Professor Lawlor served on the Irish Loneliness Taskforce, bringing his clinical and research expertise to policy development. He has collaborated with international experts on commentaries addressing public health approaches to loneliness  (here, here, here,  here, and in the context of COVID), helping establish loneliness as a recognized public health priority. He also helped to launch the Loneliness Taskforce Research network in 2023. One of his last contributions to research publications was on the effect of retirement on loneliness from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. He was happy to find that retirement was not associated with increased loneliness but in fact offered the opportunity for social connection!

Thank you, Professor Lawlor, for your central contributions in establishing loneliness as a research focus in Ireland and internationally. Your work across these areas will continue to influence research and practice for years to come.