Happy Mental Health Day: A Movement for Global Mental Health

A Movement for Global Mental Health is launched

This week sees the launch of an international scientific and social movement
on global mental health. This initiative signals the work of a remarkable team
of multidisciplinary health professionals, many of whom led The Lancet's
Series on global mental health a year ago. A summary of progress in global mental health since this series is reported in today's issue.

To coincide with World Mental Health Day on Oct 10, World Health Organization (WHO) launched its own new mental-health strategy, the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP), which draws heavily on the work published last year.

Mental health has long been marginal to global health initiatives. To take one explicit example: mental health is not recognised in the Millennium Development Goals. But as The Lancet's Series pointed out, there can be no health without mental health. Around 14% of the global burden of disease is attributable to neuropsychiatric conditions-including depression, alcohol-use and substance-use disorders, and psychoses. Indeed, the burden of mental ill-health is likely to have been underestimated because the connection with other health conditions is often ignored. Worse still, the availability, accessibility, and quality of health services is poor and inequitable.

The authors of The Lancet's Series-led by Vikram Patel, Martin Prince, and Shekhar Saxena-argued that mental-health awareness should be fully integrated into all aspects of health and social policy making.

The Movement for Global Mental Health includes users, providers, scientists, institutions, civil society, and policy makers. The Movement is truly global and inclusive. Its website already shows the broad diversity of partners who have signed up to the Movement's call to action.

The next phase of the Movement is to scale up and widen the range of science being undertaken, develop advocacy efforts, attract more funding, and influence policy makers. A report card on progress will be given at a global mental-health summit to take place in Athens at the World Forum on Mental Health on Sept 2, 2009.

The Lancet will devote an issue to global mental-health monitoring and evaluation, including research and policy making, for the September summit next year. Mental health has at last come of age on the global health-and global political-agenda. Now is the moment to take full advantage of this unprecedented opportunity.

In a Viewpoint, Vikram Patel and colleagues outline progress since The 2007 mental health series, and look ahead to the world's first global summit taking place in Athens in September 2009. Sign up to read the article here.

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News release from the Child Welfare League of Canada, a membership-based national organization dedicated to promoting the well-being and protection of vulnerable young people. CWLC plays a significant role in promoting best practices among those in the field of child welfare, child and youth mental health, child rights and youth justice.