WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health
Children in Al Hol camp, north-east Syria.
Mental, neurological and substance use conditions account for a large and growing proportion of the world’s disease burden; as many as 1 in 8 people worldwide live with a mental health condition. Yet 85% of people with mental disorders receive no treatment at all.
WHO’s Special Initiative for Mental Health (SIMH) seeks to address this service and treatment gap, in ten countries across WHOs six Regions – Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, Jordan, Nepal, Paraguay, Philippines, Ukraine and Zimbabwe. The SIMH works with these countries to transform mental health services, making them universally available in community settings, espcially at the primary and secondary health care levels.
As of the end of 2024, at least 72.3 million more people now have access to newly available services at the local level; achieved with modest financial investments of just US $0.40 per person.
SIMH Library
*Figures are likely higher - countries are only tracking service uptake in selected facilities
Countries
Events
In 2020, One World magazine, run by the Swiss Development and Cooperation Agency (SDC), featured the "WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health" in an article called “A ticking time bomb”. The article includes stories about mental health services in three countries (Bosnia and Herzogovina, Jordan and Somalia) and describes why the Special Initiative is so timely.