European Biotechnology News (EBN) is a Europe-wide publication that focuses on trends, research and deals in the area of biotechnology. For such a commercial publication, I was very surprised to read this fascinating article on page 5 back in November . . .Mental Health: Suffering that makes few headlines.
It reports on the findings of a three year study (done by ECNP and EBC) - 40% of the population of the EU (165 million) suffer from one of 100 clinically-defined mental health conditions annually. They found that 27% of DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) are lost due to neurological and psychological conditions - making it more serious than either cancer or heart disease.
I think that is a really relevant statistic to use when thinking about mental health - it doesn't kill people (directly!) but causes enormous levels of angst and unhappiness which can be hidden in their nature and therefore don't attract the same attention as the big killers. It is also very encouraging to see this being reported in such a publication too!
No comments:
Post a Comment