By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
Two recently published studies show that mental health problems are on the way to becoming the largest health challenge of the 21st century for the populations of both the United States and more than 30 European nations.
According to USA Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a new report that found “unacceptably high levels of mental illness in the U.S. Their study, based on country-wide surveys, found that almost half of all Americans will experience some kind of mental health problem at some point in their life, from depression to post-traumatic stress disorder to suicide, many of whom never get help for their condition.
“Essentially, about 25 percent of adult Americans reported having a mental illness in the previous year,” said Ileana Arias, principal deputy director of the CDC. “In addition to the high level, we were surprised by the cost associated with that — we estimated about $300 billion in 2002.”
The reasons behind the epidemic of mental illness are unclear, Arias said, but the issue needs to be addressed because mental disorders are also associated with other chronic illnesses such as heart disease and cancer.
“Mental illness is frequently seen as a moral issue or an issue of weakness,” Arias explained. “It is a condition no different from cancer or other chronic diseases. People need to accept the difficulties they are having and avail themselves of the resources that are available.”
The report, which was published Sept. 2 as a supplement to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, also found that some 8.4 million Americans had suicidal thoughts in the past year and 2.2 million made plans to kill themselves. One million actually attempted suicide.
Experts suspect the problem could be even larger than what the CDC is reporting. Dr. John Newcomer, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said that the CDC report, which only looked at people in the health-care system, didn’t include state Medicaid programs which spend a great deal of money on drugs to treat mental illness.
“For several years the top three drugs were antipsychotic drugs,” Newcomer said.
This is in addition to the untold thousands who hide the problem from others, which results in underdiagnosis and undertreatment.
Dr. Alan Manevitz, a clinical psychiatrist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said healthy living – getting enough sleep, eating right, exercising – can help people avoid some mental illness.
“Understanding how to deal with psychological stresses is also important,” he told USA Today. “How to deal with emotional reactivity and stress tolerances are also important skills to develop early in life.”
This report coincides with another study recently published in Europe which found that a shocking 38 percent of the population of 30 European nations is suffering from some kind of mental or neurological illness. These illnesses range from anxiety disorders and insomnia to Alzheimers and dementia.
Reuters is reporting that Hans Ulrich Wittchen, director of the institute of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at Germany’s Dresden University and lead author of the three-year study, surveyed 27 European Union countries plus Switzerland, Iceland and Norway – for a total of 514 million people. The study looked at about 100 illnesses covering all major brain disorders from anxiety and depression to addiction to schizophrenia, as well as major neurological disorders including epilepsy, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.
The results, published by the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ENCP) on Monday, show an “exceedingly high burden” of mental health disorders and brain illnesses, he told reporters at a briefing in London.
“Mental disorders have become Europe’s largest health challenge of the 21st century,” the report stated.
As is the case in the U.S., many Europeans do not receive the treatment they need.
“The immense treatment gap … for mental disorders has to be closed,” Wittchen said. “Those few receiving treatment do so with considerable delays of an average of several years and rarely with the appropriate, state-of-the-art therapies.”
The cost to European society for these illnesses is enormous. A study conducted in 2005 found that the cost burden of these and other neurological disorders amounted to about 386 billion euros ($555 billion) a year at that time. Wittchen’s team has yet to finalize the economic impact data from this latest work, but he said the costs would be “considerably more” than estimated in 2005.
Mental illnesses are a major cause of death, disability, and economic burden worldwide and the World Health Organization predicts that by 2020, depression will be the second leading contributor to the global burden of disease across all ages.
The Church has repeatedly stressed the need for more care for those who suffer from mental illness. Pope John Paul II’s 1997 message to healthcare workers states that “Whoever suffers from mental illness ‘always’ bears God’s image and likeness in [themselves], as does every human being. In addition, [people with mental illness] ‘always’ have the inalienable right not only to be considered as an image of God and therefore as a person, but also to be treated as such.”
One of the greatest obstacles for people with mental illness and for their families is overcoming the stigma the general public associates with mental illness. The Church teaches that this stigma erodes the dignity of the person and prevents them from being seen as an image of God. As a result, this stigma detracts from a person’s dignity and can keep them from receiving the treatment and care they need for recovery.
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