Global mental health snapshot: 1.2 billion people are living with mental disorders
Adolescents aged 15 to 19 and women of all ages are the worst affected, especially by anxiety and depression
Global mental health has eroded. A study published this Thursday in the journal The Lancet estimates that about 1.2 billion people — 14% of the planet — suffer from mental health problems. That is, in absolute terms, nearly double the number recorded in 1990. Experts attribute the rise in part to improved detection, but also say entrenched poverty, wars, the impact of natural disasters and disruptive events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have driven up the incidence of some disorders. Adolescents aged 15 to 19 and women of all ages are the hardest hit: they bear the highest levels, especially of anxiety and depression. According to the study, mental disorders are already the leading cause of disability worldwide, surpassing cardiovascular disease, cancer and musculoskeletal conditions.
The new scientific review, which examined the epidemiology of a dozen psychiatric disorders in 200 countries between 1990 and 2023, estimates that the age-standardized prevalence of these conditions — that is, removing the distorting effect of population aging — increased by 24% over three decades. Anxiety grew the most (up 65%) and depression by 41%, but eating disorders (between 17% and 22%) and autism spectrum disorders (21%) also rose.
Addressing the surge in anxiety and depression, which peaked after the COVID health crisis, Damian Santomauro, a professor at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research in Australia and a study author, says these upward trends “may reflect both the enduring effects of pandemic-related stress and long-term structural factors such as poverty, insecurity, abuse, violence and decreased social connection.” In a statement, the scientist warns: “Tackling this growing challenge will require sustained investment in mental health systems, wider access to care and coordinated global action to provide better support for the most vulnerable populations.”
The wave of poor mental health has spread across the globe. There are regional differences, but the upward trend spares neither rich nor poor countries. Within high-income regions, for example, anxiety has surged in Australasia and autism spectrum disorders have risen in the Asia-Pacific area. But anxiety cases have also jumped in Latin America, South Asia and western sub‑Saharan Africa.
Jorge Aguado, a clinical psychologist at Hospital Clínic and a researcher at Barcelona’s Idibaps who did not participate in the study, says the research shows the burden of mental disorders is “very high.” “Depression and anxiety account for much of the impact, while schizophrenia stands out for its severity. A marked increase is also seen in late adolescence and early adulthood, underscoring the importance of prevention and early intervention. However, these data should be interpreted with caution. The observed rise may be due to multiple factors, such as demographic changes, greater detection or the impact of COVID, and not necessarily a real increase in cases,” the expert adds in remarks to the SMC specialized website.
Gender gap
The global snapshot of mental health also crystallizes a deep gender gap that runs across all life stages. Overall, the prevalence of mental disorders and the loss of healthy life years attributable to these conditions were higher in women, although this specific burden on women emerges particularly from age 15, when levels of depression and anxiety begin to exceed those of men. Earlier, from birth through age 14, the most frequent mental disorders are conduct and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism or attention‑deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and prevalence is higher in boys.
The authors suspect an interaction of psychological, social and biological mechanisms explains the greater prevalence of mental disorders among women for much of their lives. “Compared with males, women experience lower self‑esteem, a greater tendency to body‑related shame and higher rates of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Women also undergo biological changes, especially during the peripartum period, bear greater caregiving responsibilities, and are subject to other structural inequalities, such as gender discrimination and lower gender equity,” they list.
All those additional burdens take a toll on mental health, although the authors acknowledge more research is needed to analyze how these stressors interact and how they affect treatment pathways differently by sex. In 2023, 620 million women of all ages lived with a mental disorder, while the number of men affected stood at 552 million.
Mental disorders do not kill—at least not to the same extent as many other illnesses. But their impact on quality of life and the degree of disability they cause, especially among working‑age people, keeps the scientific community on alert. The The Lancet study, which uses a metric to calculate a disease’s total impact on a person’s life — estimating years of healthy life lost to poor health, disability and premature death (DALYs) — concludes that mental disorders are now the fifth‑largest cause of healthy life years lost. In 1990 they ranked 12th. “The findings suggest we are entering an even more worrying phase of worsening global mental disorder burden. It is concerning that this increase in burden has not been accompanied by a proportional expansion of mental health services to meet rising global demand,” the authors reflect.
Insufficient care
The study stresses that care is insufficient. It notes that in a previous analysis they estimated only 9% of people with major depression in 2021 received “minimally adequate treatment.” In fact, only seven countries (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea and Sweden) reached treatment rates above 30%. In 90 countries, coverage was below 5%.
Elisabet Domínguez, a psychologist with a PhD in pharmacology at Barcelona’s Hospital de Sant Pau, says the research findings are “an unequivocal wake‑up call to governments to act with early‑prevention policies, youth‑ and women‑tailored care, and real, coordinated investment in mental health.”
“When scientists talk about the ‘burden’ of a disease, they do not mean only how many people have it, but how much real harm it causes in people’s lives. It is a way of measuring collective suffering: how many years of healthy life are lost because someone cannot work, socialize or simply live normally due to their illness. In the case of mental disorders, that harm comes from living for years or decades with persistent anxiety, with depression that prevents you from getting out of bed, or with schizophrenia that completely isolates the person who suffers from it. This study shows that mental disorders are today the leading cause of disability in the world. In other words, no other disease limits daily life for so many people on the planet, even if it is not the one that kills most directly,” the expert reflects in remarks to the SMC portal.
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