Why in news?

• The Indian State Level Disease Burden Initiative has recently prepared a comprehensive estimates of disease burden attributes to mental health.
• This report is been published in Lancet Psychiatry journal.

Categorization of states as per the Report:

• The study divides different States into three categories on the basis of their socio-demographic index (SDI), that is low, medium and high SDI States.
• The SDI is a composite measure of per-capita income, mean education, and fertility rate in women younger than 25 years and is calculated on a scale of one.

Key findings of the Report:

• The study finds that roughly one in seven Indians, or 197 million persons, suffered from mental disorders of varying severity. It includesdepression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, idiopathic developmental intellectual disability, conduct disorders, and autism.
• Importantly, the contribution of mental disorders to the disability adjusted life year (DALY) — the sum of total years of life lost and years lived with disability — has doubled between 1990 and 2017 increasing from 2.5% to 4.7%.
• Depressive disorders were highest in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and Telangana among the high SDI State group. Andhra Pradesh in the middle SDI State group.
• Anxiety disorderswere found to be more common in Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana and Maharashtra in the high SDI State group and Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, and West Bengal in the middle SDI State group.

Significance of the Report:

• It provides the state with disease profile which will be useful for the state-specific health planning instead of general one.
• It shows both overall trend and inter-state variations over a considerably large period.
• It also calls for strengthening the local level health infrastructure and creating awareness among masses.
• It leads to speeding up health expenditure in states due to the rise of non-communicable diseases and infectious diseases in children.
• The regional diversity in its risk show that we need different approaches, especially since food habits differ vastly in India from state to state.
• Unhealthy diet leading to several diseases is almost a national crisis and shows that policies need to synergise health sector with other sectors such as that of fast-moving consumer goods.
• The report will provide important input for date driven and decentralized health planning and monitoring recommended by National Health Policy 2017 and NITI Aayog Agenda 2017-2020