{"id":689370,"date":"2026-05-23T11:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T11:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/689370\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T11:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T11:34:16","slug":"worlds-burden-of-mental-disorders-doubled-since-1990-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/689370\/","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s burden of mental disorders doubled since 1990 – News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mental disorders are now the leading cause of disability globally, overtaking cancer and cardiovascular disease, new research has found.<\/p>\n

The study, conducted by The University of Queensland, University of Washington and Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (QCMHR), found nearly 1.2 billion people worldwide were living with a mental disorder in 2023, nearly double the number in 1990.<\/p>\n

Associate Professor Damian Santomauro<\/a>, from UQ\u2019s\u00a0School of Public Health<\/a> and QCMHR, said researchers examined the health burden of 12 mental disorders \u2013 including anxiety disorders, major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, and eating disorders \u2013 and assessed global trends between 1990 to 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr Santomauro said researchers used the Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) metric to analyse mental disorder burden, where one DALY equals one healthy year of life lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cMental disorders have been a leading cause of DALYs globally for decades, but these findings show we are entering an even more concerning phase of worsening mental disorder burden,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen compared with other disease groups, mental disorders were the fifth leading cause of DALYs in 2023, up from 12th in 1990, led mostly by increases in anxiety disorders and major depression.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe observed increases in DALY rates in all world regions, but they were strongest in Australasia and Western sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also found the burden of mental disorder peaked amongst youth aged 15-19 years old, and women had higher rates than men.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Coloured<\/p>\n

For the original figure please see figure 3 in the study published in The Lancet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Honorary Associate Professor Alize Ferrari<\/a> from UQ\u2019s School of Public Health said the findings show the response to mental disorders globally is not sufficient.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter whether you\u2019re from a resource poor country, or a country with more health resources available, the burden is high,\u201d Dr Ferrari said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more research, but there are many factors likely contributing to the global trends observed including data quality and availability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are also risk factors for mental disorders likely at play including those related to child maltreatment, domestic violence, genetics, rising inequality, decline in social cohesiveness, impact of climate change, pandemics, war and natural disasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a significant shift in how we respond to mental disorders globally, with better surveillance and more coordinated policy action to reduce the burden through early treatment and prevention.\u201d<\/p>\n

This study used data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2023, which is led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in collaboration with the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (Queensland Health) and UQ, with funding from the Gates Foundation.<\/p>\n

Read the research<\/a> published in The Lancet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mental disorders are now the leading cause of disability globally, overtaking cancer and cardiovascular disease, new research has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,137,514,515],"class_list":["post-689370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}