World Health Day 2001

The year 2001 is going to be very crucial for mental health all over the world. The world Health Organisation, for the first time in its history, has decided to specially focus on mental health activities during 2001. The World Health Day, which is celebrated all over the world on 7th of April, will this year have its theme as mental health. The World Health Assembly which meets in the month of May, in Geneva, every year and is attended by the top representatives of ministries of health of all countries, will be discussing in detail the problems of mental health. The World Health Report, which is published every year in the month of June, will be specially focussed on mental health during 2001. it is a matter of pride to record that the Chief Editor of this landmark World Health Report 2001, is an Indian colleague Dr. R. Srinivasa Murthy. Why this sudden interest in mental health by the WHO? In fact, the interest in mental health is not sudden by the WHO; it has been there since its very inception but the recent evidence for the importance of mental health has been so striking that the present leadership in the WHO decided to give it a priority focus during the year 2001, the first year of the new century. The new emerging evidence is in the shape of total burden of neuropsychiatric disorders in the society, the new researches leading to better understanding of etiology of mental disorders and new cost-effective methods of management of mental disorders. The biggest stumbling block in our acceptance of mental disorders as priority conditions in health is, of course, the old prejudice against mental illnesses which exists as much in the medical profession as it exists in the lay public outside the profession. Health burden of mental disorders : With the dramatic increase in the life expectancy in recent years, the health dynamics has undergone major changes. The communicable diseases are being rapidly replaced by non-communicable diseases as major causes of death and disability, all over the world. For too long, health professionals have been preoccupied with mortality statistics which tells us only how people die. It is equally important to know how people live and how the total burden of diseases, both of death and disability, is shared by the society. During the last ten years, a new measure "Disability Adjusted …