Mental disorders, substance abuse kill more than AIDS

Mental and substance use disorders were the leading cause of non-fatal illness worldwide in 2010. Significantly, mental and substance use disorders were together responsible for more of the global burden of death and illness than HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, diabetes, or transport injuries, a new analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study, published in the Lancet has revealed. Furthermore, depressive disorders accounted for the largest proportion of this burden — around two fifths (40%). The result comes from a new analysis of the global burden (overall illness and death) attributable to mental and substance use disorders in 2010. Researchers found that mental and substance use disorders were the fifth leading contributor to death and disease worldwide. When they analysed the contribution of mental and substance disorders to non-fatal illness only, they found that they were responsible for more than a fifth (22.8%) of all disease burden, the leading cause worldwide. This disparity is accounted for by the fact that mental and substance use disorders were recorded as having caused comparatively few deaths (2,32,000) in 2010, relative to the overall illness they caused. Most of the deaths recorded were attributable to substance use disorders. However, the authors pointed out that there was a considerable premature mortality in people with mental disorders, but in GBD, their deaths are coded to the physical cause of death. Following GBD protocol, deaths by suicide are coded under injuries, even though most suicide is a result of mental disorder. In addition, deaths from illicit drugs are often recorded as accidental poisonings — and although the study modelling accounted for this where possible, the true number of deaths caused by illicit drug use may be even higher.