Number Of People Living With Depression Globally Increases 18%; Disorder Is Leading Cause Of Disability Worldwide, WHO Says

Agence France-Presse/The Guardian: Depression is leading cause of disability worldwide, says WHO study
“Cases of depression have ballooned almost 20 percent in a decade, making the debilitating disorder the leading cause of disability worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. By 2015, the number of people globally living with depression, according to a revised definition, had reached 322m, up 18.4 percent since 2005, the U.N. agency said on Thursday…” (3/31).

Fortune: Depression Is Now the World’s Most Widespread Illness
“…Worryingly, if unsurprisingly, the agency found that the majority of those with the condition aren’t receiving adequate care: in high income countries, it estimates 50 percent of those with the disorder don’t get treatment, while in low-income countries that number rises to 80 percent to 90 percent. In part, this stems from a lack of funding — on average, only three percent of a government’s health budget is spent on mental health programs…” (Entis, 3/30).

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