‘Stark Scenario for Mental Health’

“Despite impressive medical advances in many aspects of health care,” notes an article published in Synergy, a newsletter of the Canadian Society for International Health, “we face a stark global scenario for mental health.”

One report concluded that 1 out of 4 people worldwide suffers from mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders. Another study indicated that 1 out of 3 patients seeing a health worker does so because of suffering from depression or anxiety problems. And those numbers, say researchers, are increasing.

Why? A study conducted by Harvard University’s Department of Social Medicine notes that such illnesses as clinical depression, schizophrenia, and dementia are multiplying because “more people live to the age of risk.” However, living longer is not the only reason. Economic problems are also to blame, as is the increased stress of modern living.

How can this gloomy picture be changed? Amid the many aspects of health care, say experts, mental health should be given priority because it “represents one of the last frontiers in the improvement of the human condition.”