The Lancet Commission on global mental health and sustainable development

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent an exponential advance from the Millennium Development Goals, with a substantially broader agenda affecting all nations and requiring coordinated global actions. The specific references to mental health and substance use as targets within the health SDG reflect this transformative vision. In 2007, a series of papers in The Lancet synthesised decades of inter-disciplinary research and practice in diverse contexts and called the global community to action to scale up services for people affected by mental disorders (including sub-stance use disorders, self-harm, and dementia), in particular in low-income and middle-income countries in which the attainment of human rights to care and dignity were most seriously compromised. 10 years on, this Commission re-assesses the global mental health agenda in the context of the SDGs. Despite substantial research advances showing what can be done to prevent and treat mental disorders and to promote mental health, translation into real-world effects has been painfully slow. The global burden of disease attributable to mental disorders has risen in all countries in the context of major demographic, environmental, and sociopolitical transitions. Human rights violations and abuses persist in many countries, with large numbers of people locked away in mental institutions or prisons, or living on the streets, often without legal protection. The quality of mental health services is routinely worse than the quality of those for physical health. Government investment and development assistance for mental health remain pitifully small. Collective failure to respond to this global health crisis results in monumental loss of human capabilities and avoidable suffering.