Entries tagged with: Disability
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Half the World is Nuts! Or What’s A DALY
Half the World is Nuts! Or What’s A DALY
A comprehensive survey of mental disorders in the European Union published in September 2011 found that close to 40 percent of the population suffers from brain-based mental disorders like depression, dementia, and alcohol addiction. This study includes children and teens. Another recent, similar study in the US by the CDC found 25 percent of adults suffered from brain-based disorders. And headlines also buzzed when in 2005, Harvard researcher Ronald Kessler found that that about half of Americans would struggle with mental illness at sometime in their life.
Pundits express outrage at these numbers, asking, “How can half the world be mentally ill?” But given that brain disorders are the largest health care challenge facing modern medicine, you should understand more about the studies behind these headlines…and why these numbers are the tip of the iceberg. Read the Post →