Vigo et al.’s paper in this issue of the Journal1 builds on their earlier work to calculate the burden of mental disorders, addressinglimitations of the original Global Burden of Disease estimates, by reclassifying the burdenassociated with suicide, certain neurological disorders with significant behavioralimplications (notably dementia), drug and alcohol use disorders and their somaticconsequences, and syndromes associated with prominent pain which often have a psychogenicorigin (such as headaches) to arrive at a composite estimate of “mental, neurological,substance use disorders and self-harm” (MNSS) disorders.2 This reclassification is justified to take into consideration a “clinically andepidemiologically rational framework for attributing disease burden to disorder groupings,rather than arbitrary methodological considerations” adopted by the Global Burden of Diseaseestimates; this is an argument I completely endorse and which we adopted in the DiseaseControl Priorities project.3
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