World Health Organization
On 28-29 April 1999 WHO held a consultative meeting at its Geneva headquarters on mental health. A group of fourteen international experts in various fields was invited to discuss a list of questions and issues. The Director-General of WHO, Gro Harlem Brundtland, M.D., attended, as did the Executive Director of the Social Change and Mental Health Cluster, Y. Suzuki, M.D., and the Director of the Department of Mental Health, Benedetto Saraceno, M.D.. Many members of WHO’s senior staff were present.
The questions examined included the concept of mental health, estimates of the burden of disease from mental illness, and how additional information might be collected; the evidence for primary and secondary prevention of mental illness/problems, and the relation between mental health promotion and the prevention of mental illness/problems; best evidence for diagnosis and clinical practice, with attention to cost effectiveness; and how WHO can contribute by helping to place mental health more firmly on the public agenda.
The group of invited experts included three people closely associated with WFMH. These were Pirkko Lahti, the Executive Director of the Finnish Mental Health Association and current President of Mental Health Europe; Nancy Wallace, chair of the NGO Committee on Mental Health at UN New York; and Harvey Whiteford, M.D., mental health adviser at the World Bank. At the WFMH Board meeting in May all three commented on the WHO Director-General’s personal support for the mental health program at WHO, evidenced by the fact that she attended the whole of the two-day consultation and took an active part in the discussions.
World Health Assembly
Dr. Brundtland mentioned mental health early in her 18 May address to the World Health Assembly, the annual meeting of WHO’s 191 Member States and its its highest governing body. She spoke about the need “to confront new challenges from re-emerging infections, an ageing world population and a dramatic increase in noncommunicable disease. And – not to forget – to unveil and to seriously address the growing burden of mental illness.”
During the budget debate at the World Health Assembly, WFMH’s Permanent Representative in Geneva, Stanislas Flache, M.D., made a brief intervention during the committee discussion of the proposed 2000-2001 budget for Social Change and Mental Health. He commented: “The proposed budget increase for this programme in the next biennium, although modest, reflects, in our view, a new emphasis given by WHO to this area and we note it with appreciation.” He also paid tribute to the Director-General’s acknowledgement of the growing importance of mental health problems, in relation to individual suffering and to their socio-economic repercussions.
WHO and the European Commission
In order to increase collaboration, WHO and the European Commission organized a meeting on mental health in Europe on 22-24 April 1999 in Brussels, Belgium. Participants from EU member states and countries of Eastern and Central Europe attended, together with invited NGOs. Pirkko Lahti was present on behalf of Mental Health Europe, the European Regional Council of WFMH. The program will continue in Finland in October with a conference on Promotion of Mental Health and Social Inclusion organized by the Finnish Presidency of the European Union. Ministers of Health attending the meeting will be invited to participate in an observance of World Mental Health Day.