Loneliness and mental health among homosexual and bisexual men, a community based participatory research project

Loneliness is a widespread problem among homo- and bisexual men in Sweden, and these target groups live with loneliness to a greater extent than their heterosexual peers. We know that loneliness has a negative impact on both physical health and mental health.

Research shows, for example, that people who live in loneliness or social isolation are at greater risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases, obesity, anxiety, and depression. Among gay and bisexual men, loneliness has also been shown to be associated with drug use and sexual risk-taking.

The understanding of and efforts against loneliness among gay and bisexual men in Sweden specifically are, however, limited, therefore Lund University is applying for planning grants to develop a plan for a larger research project together with RFSL with the aim of exploring loneliness in the target groups and developing and evaluating an intervention.

The intervention is based on a group intervention on sexual health that has been successfully developed and implemented by RFSL in Gothenburg. This intervention will be further developed to highlight loneliness in the target groups.

The project will be carried out in the form of community-based participatorynresearch, with high participation in all parts of the project.

Community-based participatory research has been more common internationally than in Sweden, although a number of examples from Sweden exist.

The basic idea is that the target groups have trust in their peers, who in turn have a contextual understanding that that contributes to planning, implementation, and analysis.

The responsible researcher takes a supervisory role here and is responsible for the research being done both methodically and according to ethical guidelines and approvals.

The activities during the planning year will thus focus on strengthening collaboration between the university and civil society, as well as building the trust necessary for the method between involved partners.

During the planning year, a number of joint workshops will be conducted, a smaller pilot study, and based on the results of these, a project plan and larger application will be developed.

The project is highly relevant both to counteract loneliness and its negative health effects in the target groups, and to test methods for community-based participatory research as an opportunity for increased collaboration between academia and civil society organizations.