Including mental health among the new sustainable development goals

The United Nations will soon decide what will follow its millennium development goals, which expire in 2015. The case for including mental health among the new sustainable development goals is compelling, both because it cuts across most of the suggested new goals and because of the unmet needs of the 450 million people in the world with mental illness.1

Poorer mental health is a precursor to reduced resilience to conflict. It’s also a barrier to achieving the suggested goal of promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, providing access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels. In addition, conflict is itself a risk factor for adverse mental health consequences,2 and in the aftermath of conflict the needs of vulnerable groups such as people with mental illness are often accorded the lowest priority (as documented by photojournalist Robin Hammond, www.robinhammond.co.uk).

The improvement of mental health systems will also have a decisive role in making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable, and this is especially important given the global trend towards urbanisation with its associated risk factors for mental illness. Moreover, individual adversity—for example, complications of pregnancy, such as miscarriage—is associated with worse mental health.

A third suggested goal is to promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent …