Mental Health Stigma and UN Sustainable Development Goals

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Background

The United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) have declared “mental health as a human right”, which must be promoted and protected to the highest attainable standards. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also acknowledged that there can be no health or sustainable development without mental health. Therefore, mental health is gaining the spotlight as a critical agenda item of the World Health Assembly under WHO. The global action and fulfillment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals remain hardly achievable without mental health (i.e., awareness, care and support). Despite promising new developments in some countries, far more work needs to be done to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals of promoting mental health and well-being for all at all ages. The WHO’s Mental Health Atlas 2020, highlights that only 25% of the organization have integrated mental health into their health care systems. This implies that the diagnosis, treatment and care remain out of reach for the vast majority of 280 million people worldwide suffering from depression. Almost two-thirds of individuals with mental health conditions refrain from seeking treatment due to mental health stigma. Eventually, mental health stigma becomes a predisposing factor for physical health problems and reduced life expectancy. In contrast to physical health, the focus on global mental health in terms of budgeting, education and practice remains highly deficient.

The global mental health crisis has recently deepened with the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic that has taken a heavy toll on the global psyche, and almost one billion people now have mental health or substance-use disorder. Swift preparations for the post-pandemic workplace require identification of behavioral-health conditions and offering necessary employee support by C-suite executives. Most employers report that they are serious about employees’ mental health. However, many organizations haven’t confronted mental health stigma as a critical challenge that nurtures a level of shame, prejudice, or discrimination toward people with mental health or substance-use conditions. Stigma affects everything from interpersonal interactions to social norms to organizational structures, including access to treatment and reimbursement for costs. Stigma prevents people from reaching out for help, despite being the most vulnerable and in dire need of help. Stigma creates a cloud of shame and uncertainty that obscures what could be a clear path to recovery. Hence, this terrible paradox deepens an illness that is often invisible to others. Promoting behavioral-health literacy, creating an inclusive culture, and making mental health a clear organizational priority is no-regret moves, especially at a time when the battle for talent is getting tougher. By reducing stigma and increasing support, employers can mitigate the human, organizational, and economic costs of the pandemic-driven mental illnesses and substance-use disorders. Scholarly research and empirical evidence on the escalation of mental health stigma and its implications within the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is extremely rare and limited. Hence, the worsening crisis of the global mental health stigma requires the immediate attention of academics, policymakers, practitioners, and research scholars within the specific context of prioritizing mental health as a catalyst to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The scope of this Research Topic remains open to any work related to global mental health (and, more specifically, global mental health stigma) within the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The topic has a particular interest in generating links between the various policy interventions to promote mental health and prevent mental health stigma.

Research can include quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods empirical approaches, as well as policy analysis, theory or methodology papers, reviews, or case studies. We also strongly encourage original contributions to include comparative analysis in diverse contexts of global mental health and underlying conditions of mental health stigma within the socioeconomic environment, geographies, and/or cultural factors.

To address the specific aims of this Research Topic, we would welcome submissions related to (but not limited to) the following areas:

• Mental health promotion for UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs).
• Prevention and treatment of substance abuse (e.g., harmful use of alcohol and narcotic drug abuse).
• Mental health stigma and underlying issues of discrimination within a global context.
• Cultural factors as a source of mental health stigma (e.g., feelings of shame and environment-based mental health).
• Right to mental healthcare freedom, including non-discrimination for accessibility and affordability of mental healthcare.
• Anti-stigma and anti-discrimination in mental health care.
• Integrative and interdisciplinary mental health services that render all-inclusive healthcare.
• Multi-stakeholders’ collaboration between local, national and international bodies to safeguard global mental healthcare.
• Mental health within human rights framework using psychology training programs.
• Multisectoral mental health promotion and prevention programs.
• Raising awareness and solutions for mental health through health professionals' training
• Universal health coverage with financial risk protection and high-quality as well as cost-effective services for mental healthcare.
• Policy interventions, political commitments, and remedial actions on mental health stigma.
• Mental health advocacy through UN-based forums (e.g., UNHRC).
• International human rights instruments for the development and up-gradation of mental health policies, plans and activities.

Keywords: UN Sustainable Development Goals, Mental Health Awareness, Mental Illness, Public Mental Health, Shame, Substance-Use disorder, Behavioural-health literacy, Modern psychiatry, Inclusive culture, Societal well-being, mental health, stigma, Theory of Reasoned Action, Attribution Theory

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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