SSRI Associate Director Josh Smyth recently co-hosted and spoke at a conference to accompany the launch of the Creatively Connected Online Film Festival in New York City.
The conference addressed the impact of loneliness as a public health concern by featuring expert panel presentations on loneliness and isolation in several particularly vulnerable populations — older adults and caregivers, veterans and their families and employees in the modern workplace. Smyth, who is also a distinguished professor of biobehavioral health and medicine, gave an expert overview on what loneliness is and why people should care.
An evening celebration followed, highlighting several of the award-winning films featured in the festival. The films are freely available online and are categorized by ‘Theater’ according to a particular aspect of loneliness and isolation. Categories include “Older Adults and Caregivers”, “Veterans and Their Families”, “In the Minority and On the Margin”, “Day by Day” and “Major Illness & Disability”, allowing viewers to pick and click through a wide range of documentaries, dramas, and animations.
“With over one-third of adults reporting they are lonely, the festival serves as a mechanism to begin community engagement and dissemination of a rarely discussed but common human condition, allowing people to connect so they can begin the process of healing,” said Smyth, who also serves as a scientific advisor to the Foundation for Art & Healing.
The mission of the Foundation for Art & Healing is to use its position as a “bridge” to create and expand general awareness about art and healing, to bring forward through research and related explorations critical knowledge about art and healing and the relationship between them, and to help make this knowledge available at the individual and community level. Click to learn more about Foundation's signature initiative, the UnLoneliness Project, and the Creatively Connected Online Film Festival.