PHA-Exchange> NEW WHO MENTAL HEALTH ATLAS SHOWS GLOBAL MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES REMAIN INADEQUATE

[Claudio]

> > *Geneva* To mark World Mental Health Day, 10 October, the World Health 
> > Organization (WHO) publishes the newly updated/ World Health 
> > Organization Mental Health Atlas 2005./ It shows that global resources 
> > for people suffering from mental and neurological disorders are 
> > grossly insufficient to address the growing burden of mental health 
> > needs, and are unequally distributed around the world.
> >
> > The 2005 edition is an update of the first Mental Health Atlas 2001, 
> > and contains the most complete global data available on mental health 
> > resources. It shows no substantial change in global mental health 
> > resources since 2001, while there continue to be marked and growing 
> > differences in availability between high- and low-income countries. 
> > For example, while the survey of 192 countries does show a slight 
> > increase in the total number of psychiatrists from 3.96 to 4.15 per 
> > 100 000 people worldwide, distribution across regions ranges from 9.8 
> > in Europe to just 0.04 in Africa. This disparity has increased since 
> > 2001.
> >
> > The Atlas notes that many countries continue to spend only a very 
> > small proportion of their total health budget on mental health. One 
> > fifth of the more than 100 countries supplying figures to the survey 
> > spend less than 1% of their health budget on mental health. This is in 
> > stark contrast to WHO's estimate that 13% of all disease burden is 
> > caused by the wide range of neuro-psychiatric disorders.
> >
> > WHO has placed the entire Atlas database on an interactive website at: 
> > _http://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/atlas/__