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People who live in dense urban areas, particularly those with closely packed apartments, are more likely to experience loneliness and , a large-scale study of UK cities has found. Chris Webster at the University of Hong Kong and his colleagues analysed health data from nearly 406,000 people in 22 UK cities held by the UK Biobank and compared it with detailed data of their environment, such as their to busy roads and green spaces. The team found that people’s self-reported loneliness increased by 2.8 per cent for every additional 1000 housing units within 1 kilometre of their home, while their self-reported social isolation increased by 11.4 per cent. The researchers controlled for factors including age, health and socioeconomic status, finding that the effects were more in men and retirees. Compared with their living in the lowest residential densities, men in the highest densities were 23.5 per cent more likely to report loneliness, while retirees in areas with the densest housing were 17.4 per cent more likely to do so.