Blog examines gap between mental health disease burden, attention given to problem

Feb 24 2012

This post in KPLU's "Humanosphere" blog examines the "gap between the disease burden of mental illness and the amount of funding and attention devoted to solving the problem," referencing a post published Friday in the Global Health Interest Forum's "Blog of Scientists for Global Health," written by Paul Southworth, a visiting scholar on malaria and vaccine science at the NIH. The blog provides a breakdown of the global burden of disease in terms of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) and notes, "As you can see from the pie chart, mental illness (aka 'neuropsychiatric disorders') is the biggest slice in the pie. Yet it is rarely even mentioned at global health meetings or confabs, says Southworth" (Paulson, 2/21).