Today, Oct. 10, is World Mental Health Day. Earlier this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its latest Mental Health Atlas (pdf), showing the state of mental health care in the world. BusinessWorld has visualized the WHO’s data on the Philippines below.

Click for the full version.
Click for the full version.

According to the WHO, one disability-adjusted life year (DALY) can be considered one year of “healthy” life lost. The Philippines’ 2,763 DALYs per 100,000 people “can be thought of as a measurement of the gap between current health status and an ideal health situation where the entire population lives to an advanced age, free of disease and disability.”

The Philippines’ country profile shows, besides the figures above, that the country’s mental health policy is only partially implemented and partially in line with human rights covenants. The Philippines also lacks a stand-alone law for mental health. Perhaps most troubling is the fact that the country lacks a suicide prevention strategy.

The profile suggests the Philippines’ mental health reporting is inadequate, as data in this area has been “compiled in [the] last two years for [the] public sector only”. Gaps in the data include the number of mental health outpatient visits and figures on inpatient admissions in the country.

The full WHO profile on the Philippine may be downloaded here (pdf).

Can you recommend local mental health resources in the comments?

Text: Katrina Paola B. Alvarez

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