Mental disorders can happen to anyone, anywhere and at any time. In fact, one in four people experience a mental health disorder during their lifetime. Mental disorders affect the way people think, feel and behave and can bring about intense distress. They can impact employment, relationships and can even be life threatening.

A number of pharmacological and psychosocial interventions exist for the treatment of mental disorders, however many individuals are not able to access the care or services that they may require. Stigma and discrimination, lack of human and financial resources and poor mental health literacy are some of the reasons why people don’t get the help and support they need. It is imperative that we all work to enhance the availability of mental health services and improve the quality of life of people with mental disorders across the world .

This blog serves as a platform by which to share our thoughts on global mental health. Through this blog, we hope to communicate information pertinent to global mental health in a way that is accessible to as many people as possible. This blog is intended to form one small piece of a vast puzzle: the final picture of which is the promotion of mental health as a global agenda.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The overview of global mental health and two major projects from WHO to tackle it. (By Kanna)


When I tell my friends that I work in “Global Mental Health” they often say 
“What do you mean global? Isn’t mental health a rich people’s or country’s disease?” 
Or they say, 
“Ah, there must be a lot of work in post conflict area and post disaster areas.” 
What many don’t realize is that global mental health is bigger then those impressions. Instead, it is about the availability, affordability, accessibility and quality of services for people with mental disorders worldwide.

Below are the some materials that can help us understand “global mental health”

This 5 min video describes where the world is on global mental health and what WHO suggests as a way forward.



This 7 min video describes how we can scale up mental health services in low resourced settings.



After the UN adopted the CRPD (Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), discussions around a human rights based approach are becoming more active. Under the CRPD, mental health services become something a country must have rather then something that is good to have. However, human rights can only be realized when the availability, affordability, accessibility and quality of services for people with mental disorders are operationalized.

Below is a description of how we can realize improved human rights in mental health services.
http://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/quality_rights/en/ 
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