October 10th, 2008
Are there really 750 million mentally ill?
Today is World Mental Health Day, and the World Health Organization estimates 12% of the world’s people suffer from some form of mental illness.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation (over 6 billion people are walking around today) means my 750 million estimate may be low.
In an address on the subject yesterday, WHO director-general Margaret Chan (from Wikimedia) announced a “Mental Health Gap Action Programme” aimed at reducing the most easily diagnosed and dealt with conditions, worldwide.
What conditions? Let’s go to the report:
Depression, schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, suicide, epilepsy, dementia, disorders due to use of alcohol, disorders due to use of illicit drugs, and mental disorders in children.
Depression, drugs and dementia.
A chart accompanying the report says that, for every 100,000 mentally ill people of means there are only about 73 workers available to treat them, including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and nurses.
For poor people, there are only 29 such workers for every 10 million people.
Despite this, Chan said “these are not insurmountable problems” and “the way forward is bright and solidly paved.” A “scaling up” of the professions will cost just 20 cents per person per year. (I’ll have what she’s having.)
Maybe they can hire some of those laid-off mortgage brokers.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 10/10/08
