Mental health and substance abuse, including alcohol in the South-East Asia Region of WHO

Historically, disease burden has been based on mortality statistics. However, these statistics underestimate the burden from non-fatal conditions such as neuropsychiatric disorders, which include both mental and neurological diseases. These conditions have been ignored for long as they are absent from ‘cause of death’ lists. When disease burden measurement includes time lived with disability, several of the neuropsychiatric disorders become leading causes of disease burden worldwide.

Globally, some 400 million people suffer from mental and neurological disorders or from psychosocial problems such as those related to alcohol and drug abuse. A large proportion of these people are in the WHO South-East Asia Region. As reported in the Global Burden of Disease, five out of the ten most disabling disorders in the world are psychiatric in nature. To highlight this important concern, the World Health Organization has devoted 2001 to creating awareness about mental health. The theme for this year’s World Health Day focused on mental health, the World Health Assembly discussed the issue of mental health in four round table meetings during its sessions in May 2001 and the World Health Report 2001 will be devoted to mental health.