Mental Illness

What Is Mental Illness?

1. Mental illness is a highly prevalent, life-threatening disease that affects millions of people all around the world.

• Mental illness does not discriminate: it strikes people of all ethnic groups and economic brackets.¹
• Over 44 million people in the U.S. – one in five adults – suffer from a mental health disorder in a given year³, and over 5 million people are disabled by severe mental illness.²
• Two new cases of mental illness occur in the U.S. every second of every day – 60 million new cases each year.³

Sources: ¹World Health Organization. ²National Alliance for Mental Health (NAMI). ³Excerpt from The Numbers Count, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

2. Mental illness strikes the young and often goes undiagnosed and untreated for many years.

• Half of those who will ever be diagnosed with a mental disorder show signs of the disease by age 14, three-quarters by age 25.¹
• Few get help: in recent years, about 80% of serious cases went untreated in poor countries, 35-40% in richer countries.¹
• There are pervasive delays in getting treatment: the median across disorders is nearly a decade, contributing to a greater severity, co-occurrence of mental illnesses, and lower success rates as people age.¹

Source: ¹Prevalence, Severity, and Unmet Need for Treatment of Mental Disorders, World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys, June 2004, Journal of the American Medical Association.

3. Mental illness threatens lives everywhere.

• Mental disorders are associated with over 90% of all reported suicide cases.¹
• In America, more people die from suicide than cancer, homicide¹, or HIV/AIDS. In 2001, there were twice as many deaths due to suicide than from HIV/AIDS.²
• Suicide claims the lives of a significant number of people with serious mental illness:
  • One in ten people suffering from schizophrenia will commit suicide.³
  • One in five people suffering from bipolar disorder will commit suicide.⁴

Sources: ¹World Health Organization and Center for Disease Control. ²National Institute of Mental Health (NAMI). ³Treatment Advocacy Center. ⁴Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance.

4. Mental illness has a significant impact on human productivity.

• Major depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide among persons aged five or older.¹
• Four of the ten leading causes of disability in developed countries are mental disorders (major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder).²
• Around the world, mental illness causes as many lost days of work as any physical problem such as cancer, heart attack or back pain.³
• Mental illness, including suicide, accounts for over 15% of the lost years of healthy life, also known as Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYS) – more than all cancers and second only to all cardiovascular conditions.¹

Sources: ¹National Institute of Mental Health (NAMI). ²World Health Organization.³Prevalence, Severity, and Unmet Need for Treatment of Mental Disorders, World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys, June 2004, Journal of the American Medical Association.

5. Mental illness has a staggering impact on the global economy.

• Studies from Europe¹ have estimated that expenditures on mental disorders as a proportion of all health service costs are very high – 23% in The Netherlands and 22% in the U.K.²
• In 1990, costs related to mental illness in the U.S. were already significant³:
  • Indirect costs for mental disorders totaled $79 billion – 80% of these costs stemmed from mortality costs.
  • Major depression cost an estimated $23 billion in lost workdays.
  • One study concluded that the aggregate yearly cost of mental disorders accounted for about 2.5% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product⁴.

Sources: ¹Meading et al., 1998; Patel and Knapp, 1998. ²For the UK., the figure is for inpatient expense only. ³NCQA – Measuring the Quality of America’s Health Care. ⁴The World Health Report, Rice et al., 1990.

6. There are inadequate resources available for combating mental illness, despite its huge impact on human productivity and life.

• At the government level, mental diseases account for 12% of the global burden of disease, but the mental healthcare budgets of most countries are less than 1% of total healthcare expenditures.¹
• At the philanthropic level:
  • Around the world, the stigma associated with mental illness creates a vicious cycle of alienation and discrimination that results in social and political isolation and inadequate treatment approaches and resources within the community.
  • Despite a higher death rate, mental illnesses receiver a fraction of the charitable donations made to combat cancer or HIV/AIDS.

Source: ¹World Health Organization.

7. There is hope for people living with mental illness.

• People can regain their mental health, but not with medication alone.
• People with mental illness are successfully participating in society through a combination of medication, community support services and relationships that ease the way from isolation to full participation in life.
• Thousands of good examples exist around the world of people with mental illness not merely integrated into their communities, but playing a socially productive and economically important role.¹
• The emergence of Clubhouses and other rehabilitation services in many countries around the world demonstrates through a growing body of evidence that people with mental illness can successfully participate in society through education, employment and other social activities.¹

Source: ¹World Health Organization.