WHO declared world mental health day on October 10th since 1992. The main objective behind the world mental health day celebration is to educate the importance of mental health and giving awareness about mental health issues and its impact on an individual’s life and also on society.
This awareness helps to introspect each person himself, early diagnosis, and early treatment of mental health lead to a healthy family and a healthy society. Mental health and physical health are interrelated in so many cases.
Due to a lack of awareness, mental health issues will not come to the limelight, which leads to physical health issues. Without treating the root cause, physical health will not improve. Although we can’t see the mental illness, we can access it by that person’s actions, thoughts, talks, and gestures. The most common mental illness or anxiety and depression. Almost all go to this stage in one or the other time of their lifespan.
Every year WHO focuses on a particular theme that is necessary to the people in that specific year. Till now it covered many topics like, mental health in the workplace, trauma and violence over children and adolescence, women and mental health, geriatric population and mental health, emotional and behavioral disorders in children, the relationship between physical and mental health, mental illness, and suicide, the impact of culture and diversity on mental health, mental health in primary care, making mental health a global priority, depression, schizophrenia, psychological first aid in mental health, young people and mental health, etc.
But this year we all are facing a very different and difficult situation due to the covid-19 pandemic. It’s ill effects affected each and every individual including students, teachers, health workers, many people lost their jobs many are facing a financial crisis due to business loss, salary cut, job loss, people with mental health issues are more affected due to social isolation, many people suffering from fear about covid-19, many lost their near and dear ones due to Covid infection. So keeping all this in mind WHO declared the 2020 world mental health Day theme as MENTAL HEALTH FOR ALL – GREATER INVESTMENT, GREATER ACCESS.