Mental health in an unequal world. World Mental Health Day 2021

Mental health in an unequal world. World Mental Health Day 2021

Mental illness, why bother if all goes well? Because the day it hits you or your loved ones, you may be faced with the harsh reality of “Mental Health in an unequal world”. Close to 1 billion people globally are living with a mental disorder. Yet, countries spend on avg. 2% of their national health budgets on mental health leaving a disproportionate gap between demand for mental health services and supply. Each year, October 10th marks the “World Mental Health Day”. This year the theme is “Mental Health in an Unequal World”. 

Originally chosen by the World Federation for Mental Health, the theme Mental Health in an Unequal World” refers to the inequality in access to health services in low- and middle-income countries, where between 75% and 95% of patients with mental disorders have no access to mental health services at all. Despite the universal nature and the magnitude of mental illness, the gap between demand for mental health services and supply remains substantial.

The global pandemic along with the climate crisis and social disarrangement lead the world to a difficult place. To date, the pandemic is impacting people of all ages and backgrounds: Illness, economic impact, job insecurity, and most importantly, physical distancing leading to social isolation and millions of people facing mental health issues.

  • Close to one billion people have a mental disorder and anyone can be affected.
  • Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide and a major contributor to the global burden of disease. Globally, an estimated 5% of adults suffer from depression.
  • Globally, one in seven 10-19-year-olds suffers from a mental disorder. Half of all such disorders begin by the age of 14, but most go undiagnosed and untreated.
  • People with severe mental disorders like schizophrenia typically die 10-20 years earlier than the general population.
  • One in 100 deaths is by suicide. It is the fourth leading cause of death among young people aged 15-29.
  • The COVID -19 pandemic has had a significant impact on people’s mental health.

The World Federation for Mental Health also addresses the disparity between mental health investment and overall health. On average, countries spend only 2% of their national health budgets on mental health. This has changed little in recent years. Despite the scale of mental illness, the gap between demand for mental health services and supply remains substantial. Unaddressed mental health issues are now a leading global cause of disability and suffering. Yet only 10% receive “adequate” treatment – 75% receive no treatment at all.

The limited global availability of effective mental health treatments and a lack of objective measures of response to treatment, are some of the barriers in advancing patient outcomes. To reduce burden, it is critical to diagnose and monitor mood disorders using widely accessible, less costly, and scalable methods, which can enable a higher degree of specificity in mental health diagnoses and timely detection of clinical deterioration.

Building on the widespread adoption of smartphones, mobile health (mhealth) has gained significant interest as a means for capturing continuous, objectively observable and measurable data of patients’ behaviour and mental state. The data collected on smartphones and sensors represent a new approach aimed at measuring human behaviour and mental health, and thus an opportunity of detecting, assessing, and monitoring psychiatric disorders in a less costly and less burdensome way for the clinician.

The data collected on the smartphone are also referred to as digital biomarkers. These can be collected both passively through inbuilt sensors on the smartphone (physical activity and geolocation, social activity, text messages usage, phone usage, voice and speech pattern or wearables (sleep and activity), and actively via user engagement through self-monitored data/self-assessment data (mood, sleep, stress, medicine adherence).

By collecting this data between physician visits, clinicians can see fluctuations in patients’ mental states, providing a more holistic representation of the patient’s functioning over time. The data hereby offer the opportunity for clinicians to predict relevant outcomes in mood disorders and can thus serve as a tool of triage enabling to provide timely and preventative support to the individuals in critical need.

This approach, also known as digital-enabled psychiatry, has gained considerable interest and been extensively researched over the past decade to offer more people access to high-quality health and social care.

To learn more, visit our Research section here or watch a video on the opportunity of digital-enabled psychiatry from the Week of Health and Innovation conference 2021 in Denmark.

References:

https://wfmh.global/2021-world-mental-health-global-awareness-campaign-world-mental-health-day-theme/

https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240031029

https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-mental-health-day/2021

https://www.who.int/key-messages

[1] https://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/EN_WHS2012_Full.pdf

[2] The size and burden of mental disorders and other disorders of the brain in Europe 2010. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2011

[3] OECD – 2015

[4] Economist Intelligence Unit – 2015

Peter Høngaard Andersen and Jacob Hahn Michelsen join the board of Monsenso

Peter Høngaard Andersen and Jacob Hahn Michelsen join the board of Monsenso

Monsenso – a leading provider of digital health solutions for mental health – today appointed Peter Høngaard Andersen and Jacob Hahn Michelsen to its Board of Directors.

The company’s extraordinary general meeting was held today. At the meeting, the shareholders approved the following items in accordance with the proposal stated in the notice convening the extraordinary general meeting, ref. company announcement no. 2-2021:

  1. Proposal to expand the board from 4 to 5 members.
  2. Election of members to the Board of Directors.

Thomas Knudsen resigned from the Board of Directors while Peter Høngaard Andersen and Jacob Hahn Michelsen were elected. Consequently, the Board of Directors now consists of Jukka P. Pertola (Chairman until the Annual General Meeting in 2021), Jakob E. Bardram (Deputy Chairman), Jeppe Ø. Øvlesen, Peter Høngaard Andersen and Jacob Hahn Michelsen.

To read the Danish version, click here.

For additional information contact:
Bettina van Wylich-Muxoll
Chief Marketing Officer
marketing@monsenso.com
Monsenso

Peter Høngaard Andersen and Jacob Hahn Michelsen proposed to join the board of Monsenso

Peter Høngaard Andersen and Jacob Hahn Michelsen proposed to join the board of Monsenso

Monsenso today announces that the board of Directors has decided to call for an Extraordinary General Meeting on January 29th, 2021, where two new members are proposed to be elected for the board.

Monsenso – a leading provider of mobile health solutions for mental health – plans to further strengthen the board by nominating two new professional board members with strong qualifications and competencies to support Monsenso in getting to the next level in the company’s growth journey: Peter Høngaard Andersen, formerly. Managing Director at Innovation Fund Denmark and VP at Lundbeck; Jacob Hahn Michelsen, SVP Private & Public at NNIT A/S.

Current board member Thomas Knudsen has offered to resign from his position on the board at the Extraordinary General Meeting. Thomas has supported Monsenso’s growth for several years from being a university research project spin-out to becoming an international publicly listed company on Nasdaq First North Growth Market Copenhagen. The board and the management of Monsenso would like to thank Thomas Knudsen for his outstanding work. His contributions have been essential in building up the product portfolio, securing the first rounds of financing, supporting the management and finally listing the company.

The new board is planning to constitute itself with Jukka Pertola as the Chairman and Jakob Bardram as the Vice Chairman until the next ordinary Annual General Meeting on April 14, 2021 where Jukka Pertola is expected to resign as the Chairman. Nomination of the new board members in January will help ensure an appropriate introduction, as well as a smooth transition and handover of responsibilities in the period leading up to the Annual General Meeting.

Jukka Pertola commented: ”Since I became a professional board member, I have been lucky to be invited to multiple boards of exciting companies, one of them being Monsenso. However, to address the good corporate governance requirements, I have decided to reduce my number of board positions and chairmanships. We have found an exceptionally strong pair of new board members, who can contribute to bringing Monsenso to the next level. Jacob Hahn Michelsen has extensive experience in pharma- and health-related software and IT, regulatory environment of medical applications and a valuable industry knowhow, while Peter Høngaard brings considerable experience from science and research, pharmaceuticals, neurology, intellectual property rights, innovation and funding.“

To read the Danish version, click here.

For additional information contact:
Bettina van Wylich-Muxoll
Chief Marketing Officer
marketing@monsenso.com
Monsenso

Mental health affects all aspects of our life. ​Yet, it’s the most neglected area

Mental health affects all aspects of our life. ​Yet, it’s the most neglected area

Mental health affects all aspects of our life. ​Yet, it’s the most neglected area of public health, driving higher risk of comorbid disorders and mortality. 

​’Mental health’ as a term refers to cognitive, behavioral, and emotional well-being. It is all about how we think, feel, and behave. The state of your mental health determines how you handle stress, how you relate to others, and how you make healthy choices. As such, mental health affects all aspects of daily living, relationships, and physical health. For some people, “mental health” means the absence of a mental disorder. For others, it equals a life with daily stressors, mood disorders, affecting their ability to function.

Close to 1 billion people globally are living with a mental disorder[1]. In fact, mental disorder affects one in four families – a number which is expected to rise significantly over the next 20 years [2]. As measured by ’years of life lived with disability’, mental illness is the biggest disease burden in society today[3].

Without doubt, mental health is an important topic. Yet, the magnitude and burden of mental disorders remain unmet by the response. Countries across the globe have long overlooked the issue of mental health and mental illness. As such, more than 33% of countries allocate less than 1% of the total health budgets to mental health, with another 33% of countries spending just 1% of their budgets on mental health[4]. Consequently, relatively few people around the world have access to quality mental health services. In low- and middle-income countries, more than 75% of people with mental, neurological and substance use disorders receive no treatment for their condition at all [5].

If left untreated, mental illness can lead to other commodity disorders, such as depression, substance abuse and even early mortality. Substance abuse is common among people who are battling a depressive disorder, which can lead to further exacerbation of the symptoms related to depression, impairing mental functioning, and further damaging overall spirit, quality of life. Likewise, many individuals who develop substance use disorders (SUD) are also diagnosed with mental disorders, and vice versa. As such, mental health disorder patients accounts of 44% of cocaine and 38% of alcohol consumption​ [6,7]. ​

The magnitude, suffering and burden in terms of disability and costs for individuals, families and societies are staggering. Every year, the harmful use of alcohol results in millions of deaths, including hundreds of thousands of young lives lost. Illicit drug use disorders is – directly and indirectly – responsible for over 750,000 deaths per year. ​Not to mention, the 1 million people, whom commit suicide every year across the world [8].

Mental health has been hidden behind a curtain of stigma and discrimination for too long. It is time to bring it out into the open. Help us raise awareness, by sharing our post.

To learn more about how Monsenso mhealth solution can be used to increase treatment outcome, see our video below:

-> BOOK A DEMO

Sources:

[1]WHO -2020

[2] WHO -2001

[3] WHO – 2012

[4] WHO – 2019 

[5] WHO – The Mental health Gab Action Programme (mhGAP)

[6] Drugabuse.org, The national Bureau of Economic research – 2020

[7] The National bureau of economic research. Mental health and substance abuse. 2020.

[8] WHO – Investigating in mental health

New partership to help unemployed people get back into the labor force faster.

New partership to help unemployed people get back into the labor force faster.

New partership to help unemployed people get back into the labor force faster. Monsenso enters a partnership with Empano, a private player in psychology and psychiatry services. Together, Monsenso and Empano offer a solution for the Danish municipalities to support unemployed people suffering with stress and depression in their return to work process. Initially, the solution will be implemented in Guldborgssund Municipality, Denmark, in September 2020.

“In a situation with historically high unemployment, we are pleased to offer a solution that can help get more Danes back into the labor force faster. It’s always difficult to be outside the labor force, and even more so if you suffer from stress and depression. “Therefore, we are pleased to offer a solution to municipalities that can help unemployed people suffering with stress and depression get back to work” says CEO Thomas Lethenborg.

“The municipalities are facing a major task due to the increased unemployment we are seeing in the wake of Covid-19. The combination of our services in the psychology and psychiatry services, and Monsenso’s platform to support follow-up and data collection is unique in the market and we are convinced that the service can help municipalities to proactively help the larger group of unemployed ” says Director Camilla Stokholm Bjørkman from Empano. 

To read the Danish version, click here.

For additional information contact:
Bettina van Wylich-Muxoll
Chief Marketing Officer
marketing@monsenso.com
Monsenso