8 October 2012
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| Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York |
Depression No Matter for Experts Alone, Secretary-General Says in Message for Mental Health Day, Urging Action to Relieve Related Stigma
Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for World Mental Health Day, observed on 10 October:
Some 350 million people of
all ages, incomes and nationalities suffer from depression. Millions
more — family, friends, co-workers — are exposed to the indirect effects
of this under-appreciated global health crisis.
Depression diminishes
people’s ability to cope with the daily challenges of life, and often
precipitates family disruption, interrupted education and loss of jobs.
In the most extreme cases, people kill themselves. Approximately one
million people commit suicide every year, the majority due to
unidentified or untreated depression.
People develop depression
for a number of reasons. Often, different causes — genetic, biological,
psychological and social — combine to provide the trigger. Stress,
grief, conflict, abuse and unemployment can also contribute. Women are
more likely to suffer depression than men, including following
childbirth.
A wide variety of
effective and affordable treatments are available to treat depression,
including psychosocial interventions and medicines. However, they are
not accessible to all people, especially those living in less developed
countries and the least advantaged citizens of more developed nations.
Among the barriers to care and services are social stigma and the lack
of general health-care providers and specialists trained to identify and
treat depression. This is why the World Health Organization is
supporting countries through its Mental Health Gap Action Programme.
Depression is not simply a
matter for health experts. We can all act to relieve the stigma around
depression and other mental disorders — perhaps by admitting that we
may have experienced depression ourselves, or by reaching out to those
experiencing it now. On World Mental Health Day, let us pledge to talk
more openly about depression. This is the first critical step to
removing one of the barriers to treatment and helping to reduce the
disability and distress caused by this global crisis.
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