Nearly one billion people worldwide suffer from some form of mental disorder, according to this latest UN data – a staggering figure that is even more worrying, if you consider that it includes around one in seven teenagers.

This sixteenth issue of the South African Child Gauge focuses attention on child and adolescent mental health and how early experiences of adversity ripple out across the life course and generations at great cost to individuals and society.

In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a massive 25%, according to this scientific brief by WHO. It highlights who has been most affected and summarizes the effect of the pandemic on the availability of mental health services and how this has changed during the pandemic.

This report, featuring brand new research from Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies around the world, sheds light on who has been most impacted by the pandemic and how.

Bangladesh’s extreme vulnerability to the effects of climate change is well documented. Through a complex pathway, climatic conditions have already negatively impacted human health worldwide. This is likely to escalate if predicted changes in weather patterns hold.

The Mental Health Atlas, released every three years, is a compilation of data provided by countries around the world on mental health policies, legislation, financing, human resources, availability and utilization of services and data collection systems.

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns about the mental health of a generation of children. But the pandemic may represent the tip of a mental health iceberg – an iceberg we have ignored for far too long. The State of the World’s Children 2021 examines child, adolescent and caregiver mental health.

Halfway into the implementation of the Global dementia action plan, the Global status report on the public health response to dementia takes stock of actions driven by Member States, WHO and civil society since the adoption of the global action plan, identifies barriers to its implementation especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and high

A report commissioned by the Cape Town-based Centre for Environmental Rights has found that climate change adversely affects mental health – and it will only get worse for future generations. The report also finds that the climate crisis disproportionately affects marginalised communities and disadvantaged groups, including women.

Suicide remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide, according to WHO’s latest estimates, published in “Suicide worldwide in 2019”. Every year, more people die as a result of suicide than HIV, malaria or breast cancer ̶ or war and homicide.