The Global Burden of Mental and Neurological Problems

Prioritizing Health Problems: The allocation of limited resources for health care should be based on the relative importance (or “burden”) of different conditions to the health of the nation. However, the traditional methods of prioritizing health problems by the numbers of deaths caused by a disorder or by the prevalence of a disorder have important limitations. The numbers of deaths do not take into consideration the non-fatal outcomes of illness, while prevalence rates do not take into consideration the severity and duration of disability produced by illness.