Colleagues,
Good morning to you all. I am pleased to join this launch of the WHO South-East Asia Region dashboard on mental, neurological, substance use and self-harm (MNSS) conditions.
Mental health is, as we know, a state of well-being that allows us to live functional, productive and fulfilling lives.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, greater attention is thankfully paid to the changes in mental health burden patterns. Today, multiple lines of evidence suggest a considerable increase in mental health issues among the general population and in vulnerable groups.
This burden is often silent, but it is not abstract. It is a tangible experience lived by individuals, families and communities.
As WHO, our response must be equally tangible. It must be rooted in evidence and shaped by data. This is why today’s launch of the MNSS dashboard is so important.
In 2023, the South-East Asia Regional Office published a report on Mental Health Conditions in the region. It gives a comprehensive overview of the MNSS burden by synthesizing and analyzing data in the WHO Global Health Estimates database, and the Global Burden of Diseases database.
The statistics are both striking and sobering.
289 million people in the region live with a MNSS condition;
We tragically lose nearly 208,000 people to suicide every year;
In the Asia Pacific, 60% of the years lived with disability (or YLDs) are due to depression, migraine, anxiety, and schizophrenia;
In children between 5 and 14 years old, more than 70% of the YLDs are due to migraine, anxiety disorders, autism and Aspergers syndrome; and
The top causes of disability due to neurological conditions are epilepsy, migraine, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. This is the worrying reality of a region with an aging population.
There is clearly an urgent need to re-orient mental health care to be compassionate, community-based, person-centered, timely, accessible, and affordable.
This is why the MNSS dashboard matters.
It is a powerful tool for providing updated, disaggregated data by country, gender, age, and condition. It will assist policymakers understand where gaps exist, who is being left behind, and what interventions are needed urgently.
The dashboard answers the call of the 2022 Paro Declaration, which noted ‘with concern, the scarcity of data on the prevalence of mental disorders’ and resolved to ‘strengthen data gathering and reporting.’
The dashboard also is a major step towards fulfilling Objective #4 of the region’s 2023-2030 Mental health action plan, which requires us to ‘strengthen information systems, evidence and research for mental health.’
The launch of this dashboard today brings these commitments to life, and I congratulate our colleagues for this.
But, as we know, data alone is not enough - it must be followed by action.
Therefore, I urge us all to promote this dashboard widely, and to ensure that the data drives decisions – decisions that improve lives.
As our DG Dr. Tedros often says, there is no health without mental health. With this launch today, we take a major step towards the holistic health and wellbeing of everyone in South-East Asia.
For this, I thank you.