Welcome to SUNS 2008!

Topic B: Measures to Promote and Prevent Mental Health

Committee: World Health Organization

Director: Mónica Itzel Guerrero Ruiz

Committee Background:

The World Health Organization is the directing and coordinating authority for health in the United Nations system. It is their work to provide leadership on global health matters, making the health agenda, setting standards and norms, monitoring and assessing health trends, and provide technical support to countries.

WHO was established on April 7, 1948 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The Committee objective “is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health”. Their mission is to combat disease and promote the general health around the world. Health according to WHO it’s a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not simply the absence of disease or illness.

As any other committee WHO cannot force countries to follow their norms nor their standards, but it can only suggests them to do what they propose and assure them that they are taking a very intelligent decision.

Topic Background:

“121 million people suffer from depression. Every year, one million people commit suicide, 60 per cent of which are the result of depressive disorders and schizophrenia” World Health Organization.

Mental Health is a state of well-being in which every individual realizes of his or her potential, can work productively, is able to make a contribution to the place he or she lives in, and it is not entirely the absence of a mental disorder. There are more than 400 million people who suffer from any kind of mental disorder worldwide and one fourth of the worldwide population will develop a mental disorder in a point of their lives.

In many countries, mainly the low and middle income, mental health services are minimum and poor of resources. The United Nations declare that in more than half the countries in the world, there is only one psychiatrist for 100,000 people, and 40% of countries have less than one hospital bed for 10,000 people with a mental disability. The very few health services there are haven’t been well capacitated, and they don’t provide the needs a society commands. According to WHO 75% of a society in developing countries does not receive a mental treatment or service. If the services are low, it is lower the promotion about mental health in these countries. The lack of encouragement to know about the sickness, the causes, the consequences and the alternative ways people could have a healthy mental health has lead them to a society in which mental problems are more and more casual.

People with mental disorders around the world are exposed to a large series of human rights violations. The difficult way of life and the lack of acceptation in their community make them often violent. They face discrimination in fields such as education, employment, voting, marrying or even having children. This leads to a bad response from the population to mentally diseased, such as banishing them, left them tied up; beaten and hungry at the edge of a town. The patients in many mental hospitals aren’t lucky either; the lack from decent bedding, clothing, clean water or proper hygiene facilities, and the situation that they are often abused and neglected are some examples of the things they have to face every day.

According to WHO most governments spend less than 2% of their health budget to mental disorders. They declare mental promotion requires multi-sectoral action, which involves a number of government sectors and non-governmental or organizations based on the community. This means that mental promotion needs a full attention by the government and organizations wherever they’re from the government or not; these actions should be focused to ensure a healthy life for children and the prevention of mental disorders in adults and old age by improving the actions that create a healthy living condition and environment.

Unfortunately, mental health disorders aren’t considered an alarming problem, even though the increase of the sickness is notable and affects the society in multiple ways. According to many countries it is an unnecessary cost in which they would need to spend economical resources. Experts in mental health declare that mental illness is an ignored issue, under-resourced and marginalized, especially in the developing world.

Mental diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, bipolarity, personality problems, between others are the main disabilities that are discussed, and the ones who are increasing consecutively.

Even when mental illness accounts for more 14% of the global disease problems (higher than cancer and heart disease rate), the problem hasn’t ever been really treated.

Mental Health Factors:

“Worldwide, each 40 seconds a person dies due suicide”.

Mental health and its disorders are determined by multiple factors such as social, psychological, and biological. A great proof of it is the poverty in which many communities live making it harder to give them a proper education about these topics. It its entirely true that a society with an environment of respect and protection of basic civil, political, social, economical, and cultural rights has a good percent of mental health in their country. Without these rights it is very difficult to maintain a good level of mental health.

Mental problems are also linked to violence and abuse which affect highly a person’s behavior, in which time they will probably develop a mental illness.

Countries that live at war develop in someway a mental illness, the presence of violence, the amount of human rights violations and the minimum mental health attention the society receives after the war are the main points that lead to mental health problems. On the other hand physical or mental abuse of a child, adolescent, or adult is an alarming situation that grows every day in a society. The lack of promotion about what to do in these circumstances and the few institutions there are to help these people has to concern all of us.

Addiction, considered by many a brain disease is another factor a society struggles to stop. Although addicts first voluntarily choose to use drugs researches have proven that the brain becomes altered by the use of the drug and become weak willed to leave the drug.

Mental Health Promotion:

According to Mental Health America, mental health policies should not be only concerned with mental health disorders, but also recognize and deal with the issues which promote mental health.

These promotions would include the socio-economic and environmental factors, who directly affect an individual’s behavior. The policies and programs should include from education to transport, which means mainly all that we do in a daily life should be mentally accepted.

For those countries that have poor populations there should be low cost but high impact interventions such as an early childhood interventions, support children, social support for the aging population, between others.

History of the problem:

Since prehistoric times mental health has always been present in people’s lives. In this period of time people believed mental illnesses were caused by evil spirits that possessed the body. Multiple ways to apparently fix the problem were performed.

During the middle ages a belief in witchcraft spread throughout Europe, many people with mental illness were considered witches and were killed. The ones who weren’t killed were send to prisons or in government welfare institutions called poorhouses.

It was until the 1500’s institutions to mentally sick people were constructed in many countries in Europe. The first one was St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, however the patients suffered from poor sanity conditions, were beaten, and other violet conditions.

Then in 1700’s things started to change. Philippe Pinel and William Tuke worked to improve the institutions conditions. Thanks to them many mental institutions introduced treatment programs.

Around 1800’s a system of diagnosing and classifying study of mental disorders was presented. Then in 1900’s Segmund Freud introduced a theory who believed forces in the unconscious mind strongly influenced the behavior and personality of a human. Freud said that conflicts in childhood affected the development of a person even when it was unconscious. Those theories became the basis for psychology and psychoanalysis.

Then in 1956 an alarming increase in patients who had mental disabilities became a problem for health institutions, who didn’t count with enough resources to satisfy the patient’s needs.

Countries:

United States:

“USA spends approximately 150 billion dollars in mental health services” Center of Disease Control.

The concerns about children’s emotional, behavioral and developmental problems have become a national concern in this country, an estimated of 1 of 10 children has a mental disorder that affects their daily life.

For the past few years institutions such as the Oregon Health and Science University have researched about these problems and how the government and society could take action to prevent these diseases. Although campaigns and new programs in schools have already been tried, very little response has been achieved.

According to the Center of Disease Control the adult population in the USA suffers of a variety of disorder in which; 29% are for anxiety disorders, 25% for impulse-control disorders, 21% for mood disorders, 15% for substance-use disorders, and 46% for any of these disorders.

However the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) is an institution in the United States who provides guidance and technical assistance to the government in order to make proper decisions in this field. CMHS is the only program in the country that is a model in the health care statistics field. It provides various programs to help the citizen with problems such as; homeless, emergency mental health and traumatic stress, child, adolescent and family, etc.

United Kingdom:

Many experts in mental health are frustrated about the situation Britain is going through. According to BBC one of four people in Britain will have some sort of mental health problem in their life. That means there are million of people in Britain who are encountering that time of problems or know someone else who is experiencing them. Despite the great problem it represents the promotion and acknowledgment of this topic is limited.

In 1983, the government announced to review the Mental Health Act. This program was exclusively alarmed with detention in hospitals, but for the first time it will actually facilitate treatment to the community.

Institutions such as The National Institute for Mental Health in England are one of the various organizations who are in charge of “Improve the quality of life of people of all ages who experience mental distress”.

Brazil:

According to WHO there is 1 psychiatrist in Brazil for every 17,000 people. Most of mental health services are located in urban areas and operate by private sector. Therefore, accessibility to mental health is limited and poor. Concerned by this situation, Brazil’s government has decided to introduce a project named International Development Research Center. The project builds up in 2 phases; the first one is to understand the cultural problems in which mental illness is constructed in the communities, and study the socio-cultural meanings and practices to mental illness, while phase 2 will look at the available mental health resources and determine what has to be done.

On the other hand, the government has implemented an advanced research about these topics. Their hoping to reinforce the conscience of the population, train the few doctors there are to offer the mentally ill the best help as possible.

South Africa:

According to WHO one of five South Africans suffer from a mental disorder. A 25% of the populations are ill due to psychiatric diseases rather than medical conditions. Nearly 20% of high school students a year think of seriously harming themselves.

Mental disorders are a major social and economical problem in the South African society. The costs of a mental disorder treatment, if diagnosed late, represent at least 5 billion dollars each year.

The Mental Health Information Center is an institution who is in charge to: promote public awareness of mental diseases, encouraging early diagnosis and treatment, and promoting a good mental health in south Africans. This institution was established since 1995, but recognized until 1997 by the MRC (Medical Research Council) of South Africa, and continues to work with the MRC Unit of Anxiety and Stress Disorders, which are the most common in this country.

China:

There are 16 million of mentally diseased in China, 15 out of a thousand will face depression and 30 out of a thousand will have any kind of mental disorder in the next 10 years. Mental illness has been the main reason for students dropping out of school since 1982.

According to Mental Health Research Institute at Peking University only 575 hospitals and 77,000 doctors and nurses are dealing with mental diseases in China.

Competition of the labor area, stress, anxiety, and depression are making social life more complicated than before. The overpopulation is making China to struggle in services demands, and spending the mental budget in this disorder is having a crisis.

However China has implemented an epilepsy project that includes an epilepsy control in local health systems that until now have reported excellent results. The project has extended to 15 provinces and thousands of patients have been treated.

UN Action about the Topic:

The UN is working with governments to promote mental health mainly. To apply these interventions, WHO recommends governments to accept a mental health structure used to advance other areas of health and economical and social development, and in that way support and evaluate activities to promote mental health.

WHO also provides government’s technical material and advice to introduce policies, plans and programs, meant to promote the problem.

They created an Action Plan in Europe who supports the implementation of each country’s needs and resources. The plan is expected to develop, introduce and evaluates policies and legislations in Europe. They will too adopt promotion for the problem in a long term to develop educations, who will offer effective programs for adults, staring during pregnancy.

Worried about the situation Africa and other developing countries face, WHO has been calling governments, donors and mental health stakeholders to increase treatments and services in the community. To achieve that, the committee has created the Mental Health Gap Action Program (mhGAP) who state that with the proper care diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, and epilepsy can be treated. Tens of millions could be treated. The program plans to help the diseased to have the most normal life as possible and help them make a contribution to society in order to prove that this people are not ignored, mistreated and that their human rights are protected.

Conclusion:

After considering all these facts, it’s clear we need to act, there is nothing healthy in a population who has mental health problems. The need of a promotion and prevention of mental diseases will surely not only help but will make an extraordinary difference. As we said before there are many facts that influence and affect a human’s mental health; Violence, discrimination, socio-economical factors, between others are situations we need to stop in order to achieve a mentally good population.

New and more practical solutions must be introduced, since it has already been proven that solutions already introduced haven’t been entirely practical.

Although mental health is a human right and an important problem, it hasn’t been taken seriously.