Chess as a Weapon against Loneliness & Suicide?

Hopefully. There's no rigorous evidence offered in this story, let alone proof, but it's at least hard to see how this small-scale UK enterprise could hurt. Hopefully someone in academia will put this to the test to show that the social benefits of face-to-face chess do help those suffering from moderate and maybe even severe loneliness. (Better still, maybe someone has already demonstrated this about chess and/or relevantly similar activities.)

HT: cmling