Before he retired, Arnaldo Solis spent more than 30 years as a non-profit administrator, working primarily in behavioral health and family service agencies. His work showed him the importance of organizations involving the community in their work. Time and time again, he witnessed a troubling pattern: An outside group would come to study a community’s needs and address its problems, but after the group would leave, the problems remained.

“I’m a strong believer that the community needs to be involved,” says Solis, 72, who lives in Sharon, Massachusetts and was born in Honduras. “They are the ones suffering from a particular issue. They, in many cases, have a better sense of how to solve it. And if a group doesn’t consult with them first, then all they’re doing is imposing their view. Then the group leaves, writes some beautiful report about it, and that’s it.”

Then Solis got a call from Caitlin Coyle that introduced him to a group that shared his belief in community involvement. Coyle is the director of the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging (CSDRA), which is part of the Gerontology Institute at UMass Boston. She was beginning a study to assess and alleviate loneliness and social isolation among older Latino adults. The study, Mi Siento Solo: Exploring the Experience of Loneliness and Opportunities for Intervention Among Older Latino Adults, would reach out to older Latino adults in Massachusetts to learn more about their experiences. Coyle hired Solis to join the team as a partner on the project, a citizen scholar who could participate in the research process.

“What I like about this particular project is that it’s not UMass Boston doing this off in a room somewhere, but instead, they’re going to the community itself,” Solis says. “They’re talking to the community, individually and in groups, to find out what’s happening and why.”

Solis and a fellow citizen scholar, Nicolas Villamizar, agreed to join Coyle’s research team, which includes four other researchers who have taken up this work in their post-career life. Villamizar, a native Venezuelan, lives in Chelsea, Mass., and is active participant at the Chelsea Senior Center. These researchers work alongside graduate and undergraduate students who round out the CSDRA team.

“The experiences of social isolation and loneliness are complex; and there is stigma or a reluctance to admit these feelings or experiences,” Coyle says. “It is incredibly important that our interview approach is culturally responsive and safe. Having Arnaldo and Nicolas helping us to craft the approach is crucial to us creating environments in which participants are willing to be vulnerable. They not only bring their lived experiences as older Hispanic/Latino adults but also their wealth of knowledge and skills at engaging their peers.” 

Social Isolation in Latino and Hispanic Communities

Older adults in Latino and Hispanic communities may be more likely to experience social isolation than other groups, according to a 2023 study in the Annual Review of Sociology. That can create cascading health effects, as social isolation negatively affects many aspects of physical and mental health, such as heart disease, depression, and dementia.

Coyle’s team is talking to older Latino adults to explore the causes of isolation and the barriers to social connections. As part of this research, which is funded by the Retirement Research Foundation, they will conduct listening sessions with people in Massachusetts who have backgrounds in countries across South and Central America and the Caribbean. This year, they’ll interview 10 people, and next year, they’ll interview another 10. They’ll talk with these older Latino adults to learn about their lifestyles and challenges: How active are they in the community? Are they isolated? If they’re isolated, why? What difficulties do they face?

The goal of the research is to develop tools and interventions that assess and address: One, to improve ways to measure social isolation and loneliness, and two, to create ways to alleviate isolation and loneliness, both tailored to older Hispanic and Latino adults.

This research is both professional and personal for Solis. He’s not only worried about his community, but about his family, too. His mother is 92, and although she’s in strong health, he worries about her as she ages. As social isolation is a risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease—which affected his mother-in-law—he wants to learn more about social isolation in the Latino community. It’s estimated that by 2060, there will be 3.5 million Latinos in the U.S. living with Alzheimer’s disease.

“My big hope is that we will get to the root—or at least to some of the root—as to how Alzheimer’s affects the community. In this case, it’s my community.” Solis says. “Until we can find a cure for Alzheimer’s, my hope is that we can learn how and why if affects certain communities and individuals.”

Coyle hopes that the team can use the findings to create a visual resource that will guide community-based organizations, researchers, and policymakers in their work to serve the social needs of older Hispanic and Latino adults. She hopes that the lessons learned will help older Latino and Hispanic adults not just in Massachusetts, but around the country.

“We don’t have a good understanding of the role that things like culture—and the diversity within cultures—play in defending against or aggravating these experiences,” Coyle says. “To understand solutions, having the citizen scholars on our team can help ensure the study captures these layered experiences rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach.”