London - 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 ten 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.
"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.
Most doctors in Britain see between one and five patients a
day who have come mainly because they are lonely, according to
the Campaign to End Loneliness, a network tackling the health
threat isolation poses to the elderly.
The Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, which the 41-year-old
lawmaker set up shortly before her death, had called for a
minister to be appointed to lead action on the issue.
"Jo would be over the moon," her husband, Brendan Cox
tweeted.