Mental Illness And Disability

From a press release from the National Institutes of Mental Health:

Mental disorders rank among the top ten illnesses causing disability—more than 37 percent worldwide—with depression being the leading cause of disability among people ages 15 and older, according to the Global Burden of Disease and Risk Factors published in 2006. Yet, the world’s mental health care needs are largely going unmet, especially in less developed nations but also in high-income countries, according to results from a new survey of 17 countries conducted as part of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The results of the initiative, partially funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), were published in The Lancet in September 2007. ...

Inadequate services were most commonly found in low-income countries, but even in some high-income countries, people received inadequate services. For example, in the United States, only 18 percent received minimally adequate services—much lower than any other high-income country.