WHO/Europe | Mental health - Data and statistics

The South-eastern Europe Health Network has started long ago (in 2002) working on mental health through a joint multi-country project on "Improving social cohesion by strengthening community-based mental health services!

The project was supported by several strong bilateral partners, namely Greece, Belgium, Italy, Sweden Slovenia and Switzerland, and two international organizations, the Council of Europe and WHO Regional Office for Europe.

Since then, the 10 countries have achieved a lot, including developing new mental health policies and laws, introducing and expanding the networks of community-based mental health services at primary Health Cale level and linked to the social services for the mentally ill citizens and huge capacity building for primary health practitioners.

Based on their own experiences and results, the SEE countries continued to work on this important health problem in the region by extended their actions beyond the project, by trasforming it into a regional programme for collaboration and development and by designating a SEE Regional Health Development Center for Mental Health at the MInistry of Civil Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the subject leading country in the SEE Health Network since the very beginning in 2001.

Despite all the efforts of the SEE 10 countries mental health continues to be a problem in Europe, and particularly depression.

See the facts at WHO Europe website:

WHO/Europe | Mental health - Data and statistics