The Global Mental Health Epidemic
As the month of September flies by, we reach a sort of midpoint on the annual global campaign for mental health. The World Health Organization (WHO) coordinates two days a year in recognition of the impact that mental illness has had on the modern world: World Suicide Prevention Day, which was on September 10th, and World Mental Health Day, which will be on October 10th. While it is essential that an entity as big as the UN works to recognize and address the current mental health crisis plaguing the world, it seems that every year, these dates come by. I think not of a bright future but of our present, where unawareness and stigma continue to draw innocent blood. In light of this, I find it necessary to distinguish fact from reality in this crisis: there is an ongoing mental health epidemic, there are groups at risk from it, and it will only get worse if it is left to decay.
A lot of people in the world do not truly grasp the global impacts that mental illness has produced. The WHO reported that in 2019, approximately 1 in 8 people, or 970 million people, suffered from some mental disorder or disease. In addition to this, the organization reports that up to 2022, there was a reported 26% increase in anxiety disorders and 28% increase in major depression disorders, results of the COVID-19 pandemic whose impacts not only stretch out to other kinds of mental health disorders but continue to contribute to the crisis today. At the same time, however, it’s fair that many of us don’t understand this situation thoroughly because of how global stigma has conditioned many into believing that mental health is an “imaginary” issue, not needing actual treatment. And it's this lack of awareness that keeps positive progress for mental health restrained.
Similar to physical health, mental illnesses have unique symptoms, factors that can either alleviate or exacerbate the condition and treatments that can either suppress or mitigate these symptoms. However, unlike physical health, many of the conditions that worsen mental health, such as social, anxiety, or depressive disorders, are intricately linked to changing socio-cultural and economic climates. An article from The Lancet reveals that about 22.1% of all assessed populations in a conflict zone were susceptible to mental disorders like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Furthermore, a study from the Journal of Social Science and Medicine reviewed 115 studies on poverty rates and the prevalence of mental health illness, finding that 80% of those studies demonstrated a relationship between mental illness and poverty. These significant factors contribute to a global decline in mental wellness, and even seemingly unrelated factors like the climate, political situations, and social atmospheres can be breeding grounds for mental illness.
What’s more, poverty, among other negative environmental qualities, can contribute to poor mental wellness in youth and adolescents. In 2021, the WHO reported that 1 in 7 people aged 10-19 experienced a mental health disorder, accounting for 13% of all mental illnesses in the world. This complexity of factors underscores the gravity of the global mental health crisis.
Yet the biggest ally of mental illness, and in turn the biggest enemy of positive mental wellbeing, are ourselves. It’s hard for people to comprehend why mental health creates the impact it does. When people don’t know things, they fear them, and it encourages them to make assumptions and lead themselves into deceit to make it easier and less painful. But when that blissful ignorance is placed and forced on others, it creates an environment where these issues remain untreated and can plague, hurting more people, without many of them knowing what is happening even while the problem is hurting themselves. A research article from Cureus in 2023 highlighted how different cultures around the world can perpetuate different types of stigma towards mental health. The journal points out that Latin American and Asian Communities may see mental health as being derived from personal failure and lack of self-control. At the same time, African and Arab Communities may view mental health as divine punishment. Yet it is the Western World where these beliefs merge, culminating in more apparent forms of social exclusion and outright discrimination in society. When these community beliefs dictate not only the family and community spaces of individuals with mental illnesses but also shape government policy and stances towards it, people with mental illnesses feel trapped and void of hope for the future in a world that is uninterested and unwilling to assist them.
And the issue is only prone to worsen. Social media continues to worsen mental well-being by providing unchecked, warped perceptions of reality conducive to creating isolation, self-doubt, and even self-hate. As restrictions on privacy, personal freedoms, and prosperity increase in times of worsened poverty and increased autocratic rule, people are brought to environments by which mental illnesses can thrive and wreck the lives of families and their communities. And what’s worse is that regardless of if the person has mental disorders at birth or if it is received at a later age, they don’t get better. Because they lack the resources to better themselves or the initiative to get help, they feel like it’s not worth it, that they aren’t worth it.
From this, our path to improving global mental well-being is evident. If you or someone you know needs help and can get help, get it. It will only help you in the long run and may encourage others to do the same. Furthermore, we must educate, educate, educate. Learn more about mental health and mental illnesses, and do your best to educate those around you. Stigma feeds on misinformation and assumptions, so if everyone works to become more educated, then people, communities, and governments will finally be able to escape the stigma that blocks them from being able to assist those with mental illnesses. However, this fight cannot only be in the United States or the Western World. Regardless of where you are, the battle to break the stigma and bring awareness to mental health must be everywhere because anyone, regardless of who you are or where you come from, deserves the ability to gain treatment. You deserve to have someone to help you. You deserve to have hope.