I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 1305
To direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a working
group to formulate recommendations for standardizing the measurements
of loneliness and isolation, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY13, 2025
Mr. F
LOOD(for himself and Mr. BERA) introduced the following bill; which
was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce
A BILL
To direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to
establish a working group to formulate recommendations
for standardizing the measurements of loneliness and
isolation, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Improving Measure-4
ments for Loneliness and Isolation Act of 2025’’. 5
SEC. 2. WORKING GROUP ON UNIFYING LONELINESS RE-6
SEARCH. 7
(a) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 8
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(1) The term ‘‘isolation’’ means the objective 1
lack of social relationships or limited social contact 2
with others. 3
(2) The term ‘‘loneliness’’ means a subjective 4
feeling of being isolated. 5
(b) E
STABLISHMENT.—The Secretary of Health and 6
Human Services (in this section referred to as the ‘‘Sec-7
retary’’) shall establish a national working group, to be 8
known as the Working Group on Unifying Loneliness Re-9
search (in this section referred to as the ‘‘Working 10
Group’’), to formulate recommendations for standardizing 11
the measurements of loneliness and isolation. 12
(c) G
OALS.—The goals of the recommendations 13
under subsection (b) shall be the following: 14
(1) Collaboration, cooperation, and consultation 15
among Federal departments and agencies with re-16
spect to developing standardized measurements of 17
loneliness and isolation for the purposes of— 18
(A) having standardized measurements for 19
use in public and private research, including 20
surveys across varying populations, with the 21
ability to capture the level of granularity needed 22
to guide strategic decisionmaking, planning, 23
and evaluation of strategies to combat loneli-24
ness and isolation; and 25
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(B) providing reliable, consistent measure-1
ment tools for use across fields and industries 2
in health care. 3
(2) Collaboration, cooperation, and consultation 4
among Federal departments and agencies with re-5
spect to developing standardized definitions of loneli-6
ness, isolation, and relevant terms associated with 7
loneliness and isolation for the purposes of edu-8
cation, awareness, and understanding of the terms 9
for the general public. 10
(3) Assessment of the alignment of previous 11
methods of measuring loneliness and isolation in the 12
public and private sectors. 13
(d) C
OMPOSITION.—The Working Group shall be 14
composed of— 15
(1) senior-level representatives of— 16
(A) the Department of Health and Human 17
Services; 18
(B) the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid 19
Services; 20
(C) the Centers for Disease Control and 21
Prevention; 22
(D) the Administration for Community 23
Living; 24
(E) the National Institutes of Health; 25
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(F) the Substance Abuse and Mental 1
Health Services Administration; 2
(G) the Health Resources and Services Ad-3
ministration; 4
(H) the Agency for Healthcare Research 5
and Quality; and 6
(I) other agencies, groups, subject matter 7
experts, or researchers the Secretary deems 8
beneficial to be represented in the Working 9
Group consistent with the goals specified in 10
subsection (c); 11
(2) 1 representative of each of the three States 12
with the highest numbers of practitioners needed to 13
remove the designations of all mental health care 14
health professional shortage areas in the respective 15
State (as reflected in the report of the Health Re-16
sources and Services Administration titled ‘‘Des-17
ignated Health Professional Shortage Areas Statis-18
tics’’ (June 30, 2023), with each such representative 19
designated by the Governor of the respective State; 20
and 21
(3) 1 representative of the each of the three 22
States with the lowest numbers of practitioners 23
needed to remove such designations, with each such 24
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representative designated by the Governor of the re-1
spective State. 2
(e) R
EPORT TOCONGRESS.— 3
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than one year 4
after the date of enactment of this Act, the Working 5
Group shall— 6
(A) submit to the committees listed in 7
paragraph (3) a report describing the work and 8
recommendations of the Working Group; and 9
(B) make such report publicly available on 10
the internet. 11
(2) M
EETINGS.—The Working Group shall 12
meet not less than 3 times in the course of devel-13
oping its report. 14
(3) C
OMMITTEES.—The committees referred to 15
in paragraph (1)(A) are the following: 16
(A) The Committee on Education and 17
Workforce of the House of Representatives. 18
(B) The Committee on Energy and Com-19
merce of the House of Representatives. 20
(C) The Committee on Ways and Means of 21
the House of Representatives. 22
(D) The Committee on Finance of the Sen-23
ate. 24
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(E) The Committee on Health, Education, 1
Labor, and Pensions of the Senate. 2
(f) D
EFINITION.—In this section, the term ‘‘State’’ 3
means the 50 States. 4
(g) S
UNSET.—This section shall cease to be effective 5
at the end of calendar year 2027. 6
Æ
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