What emerged last year from a study conducted by Faculty of Social Wellbeing was shocking to read. Loneliness is rampant in this country, with 54.6% of Maltese saying they feel alone. Loneliness is an elusive human emotion that is both complex and unique to each individual. Because it has no single common cause, the prevention and treatment of this potentially damaging state of mind can vary dramatically.

Loneliness is actually a state of mind. Loneliness causes people to feel empty, alone, and unwanted. People who are lonely often crave human contact, but their state of mind makes it more difficult to form connections with other people. Loneliness is associated with social isolation, poor social skills, introversion, and depression. Indeed, it is not necessarily about being alone. Instead, if you feel alone and isolated, then that is how loneliness plays into your state of mind.

Mind you, many times I have noticed that many people cannot distinguish between loneliness and solitude. Unfortunately, even some professionals who should know better have mixed up the two concepts. Loneliness is marked by feelings of isolation, despite wanting social connections. It is often perceived as an involuntary separation, rejection, or abandonment by other people.

Solitude, on the other hand, is voluntary. People who enjoy spending time by themselves continue to maintain positive social relationships that they can return to when they crave connection. They still spend time with others, but these interactions are balanced with periods of time alone. Being alone is not the same as being lonely. In fact, solitude actually has a number of significant mental health benefits, including allowing people to better focus and recharge.

Again, loneliness is not the same as social isolation. People can be isolated yet not feel lonely. People can be surrounded by other people yet still feel lonely. The distinction between these two concepts is often overlooked by policymakers and researchers, which makes it difficult to understand what can help people reduce their feelings of loneliness.

Imagine a condition that makes a person irritable, depressed, and self-centred and is associated with a 26% increase in the risk of premature mortality. Imagine that such a percentage will increase as time goes by. Income, education, sex, and ethnicity offer no lasting refuge, and the emotional state is contagious. The consequences are not attributable to some peculiarity of the character of a subset of individuals but are a result of the mental emotions affecting ordinary people. Such a condition exists, and it is loneliness.

Loneliness is often stigmatised, trivialised, or ignored, but with the rapidly growing number of people feeling lonely, loneliness is emerging as a public health problem. Medical practitioners are encountering this condition, but most do not have the information needed to effectively deal with loneliness in their patients. Quick and valid measures exist that can diagnose if a patient has abnormally high levels of loneliness, and although so-called common sense treatments (social skills training and provisions for social support and social contact) have proven to be ineffective, the availability of community programmes, behavioural interventions, and online resources must increase to address the problem of loneliness. Loneliness is a public health problem that can be largely solved in our lifetime, but doing so will require the full engagement and support of the medical community. The physical and mental health of a growing number of afflicted individuals and their families and friends are at stake.

The problem is compounded by the fact that many people consider that the time they feel lonely is the time they most need to be by themselves. This is perhaps life's cruellest irony. If these people feel lonely when they are alone, then they are in bad company. If they remain like that, they will find it hard, if not impossible, to outgrow loneliness. They never hope to find people who will understand them-someone to fill that space. If they expect to find people who will understand them, they will grow murderous with disappointment. The best they will ever do is understand themselves, know what it is that they want, and not let the cattle stand in their way. I have been through all that. When you are surrounded by all those people, it can be lonelier than when you are by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you do not feel like you can trust anyone or talk to anybody, you feel like you are really alone.

We all need to take action to tackle loneliness across society, and the government can play an important role in supporting this. Tackling loneliness matters to everyone: individuals, employers, communities, educators, and health professionals. Supporting people to have meaningful social relationships is crucial to people's physical and mental health. It also affects the wider community's cohesion. It is not enough to talk about our financial, educational, social, or spiritual poverty. We must also prioritise this loneliness epidemic in our country, as it threatens to become our most terrible poverty.

It is imperative that we reduce stigma by building a national conversation on loneliness so that people feel able to talk about it and reach out for help. We must drive a lasting shift so that relationships and loneliness are considered in policy-making and delivery by organisations across society, supporting and amplifying the impact of organisations that are connecting people. We must also play our part in improving the evidence base on loneliness, making a compelling case for action, and ensuring every person has the information needed to make informed decisions through challenging times.

Tackling loneliness is a preventative measure that improves the quality of life for individuals and reduces long-term costs for health and social care. Local councils have a key role to play too, using their knowledge of the local community to bring together partners and lead projects. Moreover, they own many of the assets where community activities can take place, such as public gardens, libraries, and schools. Local councils are also responsible for public health, adult social care, and children's and young people's services.

Loneliness can kill more people than cancer.