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Living in China: 100 Million People with Mental Illness

Huang Yueqin, the director of the China’s National Center for Mental Health, has said that 100 million people, or 7% of the population, suffer from some degree of mental illness, yet only 5% of those afflicted are aware they have a problem […]

Huang Yueqin, the director of the China’s National Center for Mental Health and deputy director of the Institute of Mental Health of Peking University, has said that 100 million people, or 7% of the population, suffer from some degree of mental illness, yet only 5% of those afflicted are aware they have a problem. From The Telegraph:

Mental illness has now overtaken heart disease and cancer as the biggest burden on the Chinese health system, according to the World Health Organization, affecting seven per cent of the population.

The definition of mental illness is broad, and a large proportion of Chinese suffer from relatively minor conditions such as anxiety, depression, drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder. However, Dr Huang estimated that only five per cent of sufferers are aware of their condition and try to seek treatment.

The Chinese government has only recently recognized the scale of the problem. “The government did not pay much attention to the public’s mental health over the past 50 years, and did not invest much in treatment or care,” said Dr Huang.

“However, the current five-year plan (for 2007-2012) has included mental illness treatment as a major field of research, which is a big step forward,” she added.

See also “Beijing expands psychiatric facilities” from China Daily.

By Itamar Medeiros

Originally from Brazil, Itamar Medeiros currently lives in Germany, where he works as VP of Design Strategy at SAP, where he leads the design vision for the entire Human Capital Management product line, ensuring cohesive product narratives and establishing best practices.

Working in the Information Technology industry since 1998, Itamar has helped truly global companies in multiple continents create great user experience through advocating Design and Innovation principles. Itamar has also served as a juror for prestigious design competitions and lectured on design topics at universities worldwide.

During his 7 years in China, he promoted the User Experience Design discipline as User Experience Manager at Autodesk and Local Coordinator of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) in Shanghai.

Itamar holds a MA in Design Practice from Northumbria University (Newcastle, UK), for which he received a Distinction Award for his thesis Creating Innovative Design Software Solutions within Collaborative/Distributed Design Environments.

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