Congress orders federal health agencies to agree on how to measure loneliness
H.R. 1305 — Improving Measurements for Loneliness and Isolation Act of 2025 · Filed by Mike Flood (R-NE) · 5 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 13, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
This bill directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create a working group tasked with developing standardized ways to measure loneliness and isolation across federal agencies, research institutions, and healthcare systems. The working group will include representatives from major federal health agencies, plus one representative each from the three states with the most and three states with the fewest mental health professional shortages. The group must report to Congress within one year with recommendations and dissolves at the end of 2027.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is establishing a federal working group to standardize measurement tools for loneliness and isolation. It is a research-coordination and data-standardization measure with no regulatory, appropriations, or enforcement components.
What the text implies
- State representation based on mental health professional shortage areas may inadvertently create a proxy for rural/urban divide or regional health disparities, potentially skewing the working group's recommendations toward certain geographic populations.
- Standardized measurements developed by this group could become de facto federal benchmarks for evaluating state and local mental health programs, influencing funding and policy decisions beyond the working group's direct authority.
- The 2027 sunset clause means the working group dissolves before long-term implementation or evaluation of its recommendations can occur, potentially limiting the durability of any standardization effort.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill creates infrastructure for measuring and addressing loneliness and social isolation, conditions with documented public health consequences. Standardized measurements enable better research, policy evaluation, and targeted interventions that benefit the general public. No restrictions on citizen rights or remedies are imposed.
Named in the bill
Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Administration for Community Living, National Institutes of Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Health Resources and Services Administration, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Where it stands
5 cosponsors: 5 Democrats.
- Feb 13, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 13, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $549,365 in lobbying spend. A filing names 58 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Mike Flood, the sponsor, reported $1,190,756 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Psychiatric Association — $529,365 on 2 filings
- National Alliance on Mental Illness — $20,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (4,218 characters) on Oct 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,388 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-21.
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