health week
Tuesday, October 27, 2015 7
Addressing Global Mental Health
The Role of the Sustainable Development Goals
T
jerico espinas › staff writer
he United Nations voted
unanimously to enact the
Sustainable
Development
Goals (SDGs) on 25 September.
“Transforming our world: the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development”
officially comes into effect on 1
January 2016, essentially replacing
the Millennium Development Goals
that expire this year. These news SDGs
provide countries with a comprehensive
development framework that includes
older development goals, such as ending
poverty and inequality, as well as new
ones, such as reversing environmental
degradation. In the coming months and
years, governments will discuss how to
interpret the provisions domestically and
create effective progress indicators.
The third Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 3)
focuses on “[ensuring] healthy lives and [promoting]
well-being for all at all ages.” The goal itself has
thirteen key targets that create a diverse and
interdisciplinary approach to address health issues.
Some of them tackle maternal and child health
by reducing the number of preventable deaths for
newborns and children under five. Others look at
road traffic injuries, which requires considering both
infrastructure and emergency response procedures.
One important target is SDG 3.4, which aims to
“reduce by one third premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases [NCDs] through prevention
and treatment and promote mental health and wellbeing [by 2030].” This article considers the role of
mental health and well-being within the SDGs,
and what countries may consider to be appropriate
indicators for mental health.
The WHO has recognized mental health and wellbeing as an important sustainable development
issue since the
initial formulation of the SDGs.
Their 2010 report,
“Mental Health
and Development:
Targeting people with mental health conditions as
a vulnerable group,” states clearly that people with
mental health conditions are a vulnerable group of
people. This group is often subject to stigma and discrimination, to physical and sexual victimization, and
to barriers in attaining education and employment.
ê Photo credit: World Health Organizationå
Given these factors, they often experience significant
health issues that need to be addressed through the
sustainable development of health care systems and
community-level service programs.
Other health actors, including physicians,
researchers, and health organizations, have also supported the inclusion of mental health as part of the
SDGs. These actors often draw upon their experiences
work i ng
with
this population in
order to further
strengthen the
urgency of including mental health
support in the development agenda.
Given the widespread recognition of mental
health’s importance in sustainable development, it is
interesting to see its inclusion as part of SDG 3.4 rather
than having its own target. NCDs include a wide variety of health risk factors that contribute to premature
“This group is often subject to
stigma and discrimination...”
mortality other than poor mental health, such as
physical inactivity, obesity, and cancer. Indeed, over
half of the deaths from NCDs in the global north are
caused by pulmonary heart disease and diabetes. In
principle, it is possible to reduce premature mortality
from NCDs through “prevention and treatment” alone
without meaningfully promoting “mental health and
well-being.”
Despite this issue, it is significant that the WHO and
other stakeholders are considering different mental
health indicators because it reflects their interest in
including mental health interventions within their
SDG 3.4 strategies. An important consideration for
policymakers is to look at international working
papers. One of the most prominent attempts comes
from the WHO’s “2013 – 2020 Mental Action Plan,”
which outlines broad objectives and indicators to
» see global, page 20