Inside the heartbreaking epidemic killing 100 people an hour

Every single day, 100 people are dying from one insidious condition. So why is nothing being done about it?

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Amaleed Al-Maliki was surrounded by people when she hit rock bottom.

She was in her twenties, educated, working, constantly texting, constantly posting. She had the kind of social life that looks, from the outside, like a shield against despair.

And yet she felt adrift in a sea of surface-level connection that never quite touched her.

“I don’t know if anyone really knows me,” she told an interviewer. “I don’t even know how to start that conversation.”

Her loneliness wasn’t about being alone. It was about invisibility.

She is not unique. She is the chorus.

It’s the unspoken epidemic: young Australians, more connected than ever, but somehow more isolated, more adrift, more quietly undone.

Last week, the World Health Organisation declared loneliness a public health threat on the scale of smoking or obesity.

The numbers are staggering: one in six people on Earth now feels profoundly alone.

The World Health Organisation estimates that it is responsible for more than 100 deaths every hour. That’s nearly 900,000 a year.

It is getting worse every year. Picture: iStock

We often talk about climate change as the defining crisis of our age. But maybe the real climate crisis is emotional.

A spiritual drought. A generation raised online, surrounded by noise but starved of closeness, absorbing highlight reels while silencing their own pain.

We are living through a global emergency. But it’s not broadcast with sirens or televised briefings. It creeps quietly, almost politely, into bedrooms and buses, classrooms and cafes.

It is responsible for 870,000 deaths a year. Picture: World Health Organisaiton

What do you do with a crisis that doesn’t announce itself?

Loneliness doesn’t show up on a scale or an X-ray. It masquerades behind smiles. It haunts crowded rooms. It whispers, “You’re the only one.”

But the truth is, it’s all of us. We are a world full of people scrolling past each other in search of something we can’t name. Among teenagers, it’s even worse.

For millions of young people, the defining feeling of modern life is not excitement or hope, it is disconnection. Australia is no exception.

Loneliness can impact anyone. Picture: iStock

One in four young Australians report struggling with loneliness. They are not alone, and yet they feel they are. They live with full inboxes and empty hearts, scrolling past curated perfection while wondering why the silence won’t let go.

Loneliness is not a mood. It’s a wound.

One that festers quietly in bedrooms and lecture halls and office cubicles. It disguises itself well, in jokes, in parties, in social media profiles and it grows in the absence of language.

You can say you’re stressed. You can say you’re burnt out. But say you’re lonely? That’s different. That feels like admitting failure.

Despite being more connected than ever, we're a generation of lonely people. Picture: iStock

This young generation was the first to grow up online. And in that great leap forward nto connectivity, into information, into self-expression we lost something primal. The quiet, nourishing texture of presence. Of being seen. Not just liked.

We often talk about mental health in terms of brains and biochemistry. But loneliness attacks the soul.

It leaves people doubting whether they matter. Whether their absence would be noticed. Whether they are, at core, lovable. And that kind of pain doesn’t just sit in the mind. It shows up in the body.

In inflammation. In heart disease. In diabetes. In early death. I recently spoke to a young woman who, on the surface, had it all: friends, followers, a steady job.

And yet she said the most honest thing I’ve heard in years: “I don’t know if anyone really knows me. I don’t even know how to start that conversation.”

Her loneliness wasn’t about absence—it was about invisibility.

It can even contribute to health problems like heart disease. Picture: iStock

One study found that loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

And yet, where is the national outcry? The emergency summit? The hotline?

We are a country that prides itself on mateship. But mateship is not just a beer after work.

It’s what we do when someone in the group hasn’t spoken in a while. It’s what we say when someone admits they don’t want to be here anymore. It’s the way a society tells its members: you matter.

Right now, too many Australians aren’t hearing that.

They are students on campuses full of people, yet without a single confidante. They are teenagers with group chats but no real conversation. They are elderly neighbours we used to wave to, now seen only through a window.

They are all around us. They are us. And what makes loneliness so dangerous is that it doesn’t just cause pain, it changes behaviour.

It kills 100 people an hour. Picture: iStock

It makes people suspicious. It makes them angry. It drives them toward echo chambers, where belonging is offered in exchange for bitterness.

In that sense, loneliness isn’t just a health risk. It’s a civic one. It corrodes trust. It hollows out empathy. So what do we do?

Start small. We do not need a billion-dollar task force to start saying hello to strangers. To invite someone for a walk.

To text the friend who’s gone quiet. We need churches, mosques, and synagogues to be open even when there’s no service. We need schools to teach not just math and science but connection. We need workplaces where small talk is not a sin but a lifeline.

Older people can feel especially vulnerable. Picture: iStock

We need to stop pretending that connection will come through bandwidth alone.

And we need to hear from people like Amaleed. Not just because her story is brave but because it’s common.

Because every silent commuter, every crowded party, every unread message may be carrying someone through a storm they can’t name.

The WHO has sounded the alarm. Now it’s our turn to listen.

We will not fix this with hashtags. But we can start to fix it with each other.

Australia is not the loneliest country. But right now, we are lonelier than we admit.

And the most urgent thing we can say to each other may be the simplest: I see you. I’m here.

Let’s talk.

Dr Dvir Abramovich is Chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission and the author of eight books.

Originally published as Inside the heartbreaking epidemic killing 100 people an hour