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World Mental Health Day 10 October 2006
The 2006 World Mental Health Day Campaign, “Building Awareness-Reducing Risk: Mental Illness and Suicide” focuses attention on a major public health problem. The World Health Organisation estimates that there are one million suicide deaths each year, representing 1.4% percent of the total global burden of disease; more people die by suicide each year than are killed by homicide, wars and terrorist attacks combined.
All too often, suicide represents a tragic consequence of failing to diagnose and treat serious mental illnesses. The theme for World Mental Health Day 2006, ‘Building Awareness - Reducing Risk; Mental Illness and Suicide”, encourages the global mental health community to make reducing the risk of suicide among people with mental illnesses a high priority - recognising that, left untreated, mental illnesses can be fatal and thus they must be addressed as an issue of utmost importance.