Global mental health lecture

World renowned psychiatrist and World Health Organization Leader, Dr Shekhar Saxena, will deliver the next talk in the King's International Lecture Series on global mental health.

Mental disorders constitute a huge global burden of disease. This lecture, Serving the underserved: lessons and actions for global mental health, will focus on how lower and middle income countries can close the gap between the large number of people who are diagnosed with poor mental health and the limited services available to them.

Dr Saxena will examine the current challenges for global mental health and describe WHO's Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) which aims to increase services for mental, neurological and substance use disorders for countries especially with low and middle income.

According to WHO, these disorders are common all over the world and 14% of the global burden of disease is attributed to them. However, most of the people affected (as many as 75% of the population in many low-income countries) do not have access to the treatment they need.

Many countries spend less than 2% of their health care budget on mental health. mhGAP asserts that with proper care, psychosocial assistance and medication, tens of millions of people could be treated and begin to lead normal lives- even where resources are scarce.

Dr Saxena is a psychiatrist with 30 years' experience of research and programme management, service delivery and information systems in mental health. He led WHO's Mental Health Atlas and WHO Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS) being used in more than 80 countries.

The lecture takes place on Wednesday 23 November 2011 at 5pm in Lecture Theatre 1, New Hunt's House, Guy's Campus, London, SE1 1UL. Staff, students and members of the public are invited to attend. There is no need to register and the lecture is free. The lecture series was established to celebrate the creation of King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre.

For more information please contact Sarah Crack, communications manager, King's Health Partners, by telephone: 0207 188 4058 or email: sarah.crack@kcl.ac.uk.