Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.

JhU.edu.

That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes.

This is Lindsay Smith Rogers.

Loneliness and social isolation can impact health and well-being so much so that the

surgeon general issued an advisory about the loneliness epidemic. To help combat loneliness

among his patients, Dr. Malik Joshi, president and CEO of Meritus Health, created the care

callers program where volunteers call patients just to check in.

Today, we're talking about how the program has succeeded beyond all expectations

and how little actions can make a big difference when it comes to loneliness.

Let's listen.

Dr. Malik Joshi, thank you so much for being on public health on call.

Today we are going to talk about loneliness.

So tell us a little bit about the epidemic of loneliness that's happening.

Lindsay, thank you so much for the opportunity.

Really appreciate what you're doing.

So unfortunately, as you know, loneliness is a significant impact, not just on your mental

health, but your physical health. You know, the research says that being lonely or socially

isolated has a same effect on your health like smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And it's true, I would say. And, you know,

unfortunately, COVID also had a bigger spotlight on this. People were more isolated. And so

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