Age, Sex, and Living Situation of Lonely Cancer Survivors Affect Quality of Life
Focus groups of Black women informed scientists about what turns them off about health and medical research and how to get them to participate.
What was studied and why?
Loneliness is a person’s distress about their sense of social isolation that results from a mismatch between the quantity or quality of their social relationships and social needs.
An objective measure of social isolation doesn’t always sync up with how lonely a person feels. For instance, some people who are socially active may feel more lonely than people who live alone and have few social ties.
Still, stress from loneliness (or behavioral responses to it, such as less resistance to unhealthy behaviors like smoking or not getting physical activity or enough healthy foods) can lead to serious health problems—including cancer.
Research shows that depression, distress, poor coping, and too little social support are linked with higher rates of cancer incidence. Plus, lonely people with cancer often have more pain than survivors who aren’t lonely. And, they have a higher risk of dying.
Past studies about the public linked negative health outcomes with loneliness, but only a few small studies that only considered one type of cancer looked at the effects of loneliness in cancer survivors based on traits like age, sex, race, marital status, and income.?
What made this study different?
American Cancer Society (大象tv) Surveillance, Prevention, & Health Services (SPHeRe) Cancer Disparity researchers studied a large set of cancer survivors (more than 17,000) and focused on subgroup differences that have rarely been evaluated before, including age, sex, race/ethnicity, living arrangement (living alone or with others), marital status, education level, income, and which of the 4 most common types of cancer they had (breast, colorectal, lung, or prostate).
Data was from the National Institute of Health’s All of Us Research Program, which included survey data collected via an online participant portal, and electronic health records (EHRs). They measured loneliness using the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) based loneliness scale.
This original study published in in January, 2026, and involved SPHeRE researchers Hyunjung Lee, PhD, Dongjun Lee, MS, Jordan Baeker Bispo, PhD, MPH, Ahmedin Jemal, DVM, PhD, and Farhad Islami, MD, PhD, as well as a researcher from University of California, Irvine.
What were the findings?
The study showed that lonely cancer survivors across all sociodemographic groups were more likely to have a lower quality of life, worse mental and physical health, and severe pain or fatigue compared with survivors who were not lonely. The magnitude of the associations was higher for these subgroups:
Lonely older cancer survivors (age 65 and above) are more likely than younger ones to rate quality of life and mental health as fair or poor.
The authors speculate that poor mental health in older age groups may be triggered by physical limitations and a reduced ability to keep social connections in addition to losing their familiar role in society and the death of older friends.
Lonely younger cancer survivors (age 18 to 39) are more apt than older ones to rate pain as severe.
Past studies show that younger survivors are more likely to report pain from cancer or its treatment. The disruption of efforts to establish themselves economically, educationally, professionally, and socially during these ages may increase their distress about social isolation and dissatisfaction with relationships.
Lonely male cancer survivors are more apt than females to rate mental health as fair or poor.
This strong link may be because males end to rely on smaller support networks and may be less likely than females to access social supports, so any loss in them is felt more strongly.
Lonely cancer survivors who live alone tend to report more severe fatigue than those who live with others.
The advantage of sharing everyday obligations with a spouse or house mate may buffer loneliness.
Lonely lung cancer survivors are more likely to rate quality of life as fair or poor compared with survivors of breast, colorectal, or prostate cancer.
A poor prognosis may make people with lung cancer more vulnerable to loneliness. Plus, since about 80% of lung cancers are caused by smoking, these survivors may blame themselves for causing the disease, and that may impede their desire to seek help from others.
Where might this study lead?
Neither oncology nor primary care staff routinely screen cancer survivors for loneli?ness. But the results of our study suggest they should. Screening for depression or distress are other ways that may help PCPs, oncologists, and nurse practitioners identify loneliness.”
“Even the strongest methods to ease loneliness, like social cognitive training, have only been modestly effective, indicating the need for more research to improve them. It is also important to reduce negative effects of loneliness on quality of life and health, for example, by?improving access to preventive care, promoting healthy behaviors like smoking cessation and physical activity, and screening for and managing mental health conditions,”?says Dr. Islami.?
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