Mental health problems affect at least one billion people worldwide, and anxiety and depression are among the most common mental disorders. Mental illnesses, including these forms of anxiety and depression, now ranked as the second cause of years lived with disability, present a major burden on people, families, and health systems and reduce productivity in world economies with losses estimated at US$1 trillion in 2020 alone and are the primary cause of repeated loss of life through suicide.
Among the younger population, there were 727,000 deaths by suicide in the year 2021. Despite the international objectives of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it now appears international suicide prevention efforts are not on track to yield World Health Organization (WHO) targets to reduce suicide by one-third by 2030, and only a projected 12% and an indicator that health agencies have recently published laments for governments for its goal.
