WHO's world health report 2003: Time to ease the mental health burden

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7434.288

BMJ 2004;328:288 (31 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7434.288

Letter

WHO's world health report 2003

Time to ease the mental health burden

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EDITOR—The World Health Organization in its World HealthReport 2003 depicts graphically, in table 1.2, that the leadingcause of disease burden for women aged 15 years and older worldwidein 2002 was unipolar depressive disorder.^1
2 For men, the fourth,seventh, and eighth positions concerned mental health.

The inference from these data is obvious: mental health is interrible shape. What amazes me is that easing the mental healthburden is not even referred to tangentially.

Didn't the WHO at its very inception define health "as a stateof complete physical and mental wellbeing" and then declareit a fundamental human right?

A W Amarasinghe, consultant psychiatrist

102 Bayberry Hills, McDonough, GA 30253, USA amare1@pol.net

Competing interests: None declared.

Walt G. WHO's world health report 2003. BMJ 2004;328: 6. (3 January.)[Free Full Text]
World Health Organization. World health report 2003. Geneva: WHO, 2003.