A New Campaign Against Loneliness Starts With a Potluck

The surgeon general, José Andrés and other luminaries gathered over dinner to start a new effort to get Americans to eat together.

I have never seen a guest show up to a potluck dinner in the service dress of a vice admiral. And until last month, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy had never worn his uniform to one.

But there he was in a plush Washington neighborhood near Rock Creek Park, attending a potluck in his official capacity as the nation’s chief medical officer, to start the next phase of his continuing public campaign against social isolation.

Last year, his office released a much-heralded study that identified loneliness as a growing public health epidemic that increases the risk of premature death almost as much as smoking and obesity. The study identified six “pillars of change” that the government could build to combat the problem, mostly involving outreach to the medical, public policy and tech sectors.

The last of these recommendations — “Build a culture of connection” — has inspired a new private initiative called Project Gather. Its goal is to reintroduce Americans to eating together, in whatever form that takes: a shared scone at Starbucks, a family visit to a taco truck, a neighborhood cookout, a Friendsgiving dinner.

On Tuesday, Dr. Murthy’s office released “Recipes for Connection,” a kind of hospitality handbook that presents not recipes but suggestions, scripts and support for would-be hosts.

In that spirit, Dr. Murthy showed up at the potluck dinner with a Pyrex dish of ras malai, a cardamom-scented dessert of milk and sugar topped with pistachios.