Mental health is integral to public health: A call to scale up evidence-based services and develop mental health research

摘要

The Global Burden of Disease studies documented the challenges posed by mental illness. Mental illness comprised an estimated 12% of the global burden of disease in 2000, and is predicted to rise to 15% by 2020. Mental disorders comprise 5 of the 10 leading causes of health disability; it is predicted that, by 2030, unipolar depression will be the world's second most disabling health condition.The burden of mental illness in South Africa has gone unrecognised because of scarce population-based data. However, there have been important recent developments in measuring mental illness in this country. The South African Stress and Health (SASH) survey provided the first nationally representative psychiatric epidemiological data for common mental disorders in adults. About 16.5% of South Africans