Ending Loneliness Together
Connecting and empowering young people to co-design an impactful public health campaign
Loneliness Awareness Week Research 2025: Understanding and Addressing Youth Loneliness
Background
Loneliness is a critical issue and an established public health priority for many countries around the world. However, despite being highly prevalent, loneliness isn’t widely understood or spoken about in Australia. Furthermore, despite being the most digitally connected generation, many young Australians report feeling socially disconnected and it’s impacting their health and wellbeing.
Client background
Ending Loneliness Together is a national network of organisations working together since 2016 to build the evidence-base and tools to address persistent loneliness in Australia. Using a collaborative approach, Ending Loneliness Together works to raise awareness of loneliness as a key social, health, and economic issue.
Process
In 2025, Ending Loneliness Together commissioned Wallis Social Research to conduct formative and concept testing research with young people aged 16 to 25 years to inform the development of a public health campaign to address loneliness and social isolation in young people.
Three rounds of research were conducted. The first phase involved in-depth interviews with young people to explore their experiences of loneliness and help-seeking attitudes and behaviours. The second phase involved group discussions to test campaign elements to gauge reactions and preferences. The third stage involved a further round of concept testing group discussions to test the effectiveness of campaign logos, website design, outdoor and social media campaign materials, messaging and short videos.
Outcomes
Ending Loneliness Together balanced these qualitative insights with quantitative data from the HILDA survey to establish a national picture of loneliness among Australian young people.
The youth public health campaign, Moments Matter, was launched in August 2025 during Loneliness Awareness Week. The campaign features inspiring videos showing small moments can spark connections and resources to help young people create opportunities for meaningful social connection. The campaign is available here: https://lonelinessawarenessweek.com.au/
Ending Loneliness Together, in partnership with the University of Sydney and Wallis Social Research, also published a research report, A Call for Connection: Understanding and Addressing Youth Loneliness in Australia. The report is available here: