Short: Integrated Sensing Platform for Detecting Social Isolation and Loneliness In the Elderly Community

Social isolation is an objective absence or paucity of contacts and interactions between a person and a social network. Loneliness is a subjective feeling of being alone, separated, or apart from others. These two highly correlated mental health concerns significantly increase the elderly's risk of premature death from all causes, a risk that may rival those of smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity. In this work, we propose an integrated design for technology usage to tackle the aforementioned mental healthcare concerns involving the elderly community. The technology infrastructure is an Internet-of-Things (IoT) monitoring system aiming to detect social isolation and promptly predict the risk of loneliness. With our system, interventions can be developed to maintain the mental well-being of the elderly, a salient need due to the social disruptions incurred by COVID-19.