It is estimated that one in four people will have a mental disorder in their lifetime and the main problems are anxiety and depression. David Elvira, director of the Catalan Health Service, has provided more figures: "It is estimated that mental disorders can represent 1% of GDP in lost productivity".
Currently 4.9% of the total budget of the Department of Health is allocated to mental health.
These statements have taken place in the double conference organized by the Clúster Salud Mental Cataluña, the main Catalan entity that watches over this area of health.
In a previous study carried out by the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute, mental disorders and neurological diseases represent an annual expenditure of 84,000 million euros for Spain.
Thus, the results provided by various investigations have raised the alarm about the growing increase in mental and neurological problems, showing a much higher incidence than the experts had estimated from previous studies.
The outlook for the coming years is not encouraging either, since due to population aging and the lack of resources in health systems, a higher incidence of these pathologies and a greater economic impact are expected. Specifically, experts are concerned about the increase and cost associated with anxiety and depression disorders, neurodegenerative diseases and cerebral infarction.
Among experts there is concern about the lack of response by governments to this growing demand. According to them, the stigma associated with mental disorders, as well as ignorance constitute the main obstacles that are preventing a clear view of the scope of these problems and being able to establish effective measures to deal with them.
And it is that apparently mental and neurological disorders pose the greatest economic challenge for health in this century, constituting a serious threat to our health and social care systems, as well as to the future of the economy.
According to economists, there can be no economic progress without mental health.
After years of reporting and struggle by health workers, different international associations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) or the World Federation for Mental Health, have been warned that "there is no health, no mental health" . But it has gone further and it is the analysts and experts in the world economy who raise the alarm, concluding that there is no economic progress without mental health. And it is that this problem, often forgotten and neglected in most health systems, can drag with it, -in addition to the suffering of millions of affected-, no less, than 16 billion dollars in the next two decades, which is equivalent to 1.3% of world GDP.
In a study carried out by the World Economic Forum (WEF) together with the Harvard School of Public Health, the economic impact of the five most frequent chronic diseases was analyzed: cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, diseases respiratory and mental disorders, and estimated their economic burden for the next 20 years. Considered globally, these chronic diseases will represent a global cumulative cost of $ 47 trillion during the period between 2011 and 2030, with mental disorders responsible for more than a third of this economic expenditure.
As we can see, mental health problems occupy the first place of the economic burden derived from the most frequent chronic diseases, far exceeding the expenses associated with cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cancer or diabetes. If it is also taken into account that people with mental disorders are more likely to develop this other type of chronic pathology, the true cost of mental disorders may be even higher. In this regard, experts point out that despite the weight of mental illness, paradoxically "it is frequently forgotten from the lists of chronic diseases".
For this reason, the main purpose of the creation of the Cluster of Mental Health of Catalonia is to offer people who suffer from mental illnesses and their families a space where research, teaching and curing of these pathologies converge.
The Cluster of Mental Health of Catalonia is proposed as a geographical concentration of interconnected companies, services and institutions that share the strategic challenges of care, training, research and the creation of synergies.
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