2024/06/20 by Alexander Langenkamp, Marcus Mund, Louise C. Hawkley · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Health disparities and outcomes #Urban Transport and Accessibility #Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/02654075241262321
openalex publication_date 2024/06/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The prevalence of loneliness varies widely across Western societies. However, the underlying sources of these cross-national disparities are still the subject of debate. In particular, recent advances in the literature put emphasis on exploring the moderating role of country-level characteristics for a better understanding under which condition individual-level factors predict loneliness. One such predictor for loneliness is neighborhood cohesion as perceiving the community as reciprocal and supportive has a large protective potential against loneliness. The present study links these lines of research and explores how three country-level characteristics (i.e. norms of cultural pluralism, welfare spending, and internet penetration rates) explain cross-national disparities in loneliness and whether they exert a moderating influence on the relationship between neighborhood cohesion and loneliness. By running linear multilevel models using data from the European Social Survey ( N = 45042) as well as Eurostat Data, we find that all three country-level characteristics explain national disparities in loneliness as well as neighborhood cohesion. However, only norms of cultural pluralism moderate the association between neighborhood cohesion and loneliness on the individual level. This suggests that the potential of interventions aiming at fostering neighborhood cohesion to prevent loneliness varies depending on the cultural context.