Living alone → All-cause mortality
Higher living alone increases all-cause mortality.
Across pooled studies, living alone was linked to a higher risk of death: an odds ratio of 1.32 in one meta-analysis and a hazard ratio of 1.48 among people with cardiovascular disease.
Meta-analysis · Moderate
The two move together in observational data. Nobody has yet tested whether one causes the other.
Mechanism
The passages do not name a pathway from living alone to death.
Caveats
These are pooled observational studies, so they do not claim cause. Living alone goes with other things that affect health, such as loneliness, depression and money. The second analysis covers only people who already had cardiovascular disease. The pooled studies differ in who was followed and for how long.
Effect
Odds ratio 1.32. Odds ratio 1.32 for living alone, a 32% higher likelihood of mortality on average.
Nodes
Named confounders
Cite this page
What Causes What. “Living alone → All-cause mortality.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-living-alone-mortality (atlas updated 2026-10-17).
Papers
- Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review.
J Holt-Lunstad, TB Smith, M Baker, T Harris, D Stephenson · 2015 · Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science
studies providing quantitative data on mortality · Odds ratio 1.32
- Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Living Alone Associations With Mortality Risk in Individuals Living With Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Meta-Regression.
RM Long, A Terracciano, AR Sutin, AM Creaven, D Gerstorf, S D'Arcy-Bewick, PS O'Súilleabháin · 2022 · Psychosomatic medicine
individuals with established cardiovascular disease · Hazard ratio 1.48 (95% CI 1.2 to 1.83)