Prevention, personalized attention, and empowerment, some of the main challenges regarding mental health
Mental health is the great global challenge to which the TECSAM network and all its members are trying to respond.
Mental health is the great global challenge to which the TECSAM network and all its members are trying to respond both today, 10 October, World Mental Health Day, and during each day of the year.
According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, one in four people has or will have a mental health issue throughout their lives. Mental health conditions also cause one of each five years of living with disability. If we are talking about the youngest population, the data is even more alarming: around 20% of children and adolescents in the world have a mental illness, while suicide is the second cause of death among young people between 15 and 29 years old.
During its first year of life, the TECSAM network has sought to bring all the solutions and technologies developed from the Network to improve mental health closer to society and people affected, users and family. With this objective in mind, the Network has created and made known the network’s technologies portfolio, in the research sector and in the management sector, as well as in the entrepreneurial sector and in the business sector, and also in the associations of people affected by mental health issues. This has enabled links to be generated between groups of the Network and the rest of the ecosystem. The TECSAM network has also developed networking sessions to facilitate internal synergies between groups, promoting links between technological and clinical groups, participating in international events as part of its plan for inter-internationalization, and releasing its programs “transfer program” and “intellectual property program”, among other activities.
Also, since the Network has worked to identify several specific challenges in terms of the comprehensive approach to mental health. Some of the specific challenges identified by the Network are those related to the prevention and promotion of mental health in childhood, pre-adolescent life and elderly people. Others are linked to the personalised attention and empowerment of the people affected, as well as the creation of Community attention resources integrated into primary care and hospitals. There are also challenges in the gender perspective, and the challenges linked to Covid-19 are also very important.
The pandemic has had a major impact on people’s mental health and at many different levels, starting with widespread social isolation due to confinements. Some groups, such as health workers and other first-line professionals, students, people living alone and those with pre-existing mental illnesses, have been particularly affected. In addition, care services for mental, neurological and substance-consumption disorders have been considerably disrupted, with consequences that are still being assessed.
These are a few examples of different areas of interest and work in the TECSAM network and in which the 29 groups involved research and develop technologies, with the ultimate aim of improving people’s quality of life.
Salut Mental Catalunya celebrates its 25th anniversary
The World Mental Health Day has also been the date chosen by Salut Mental Catalunya (SMC), an entity linked to the TECSAM’s Network, to commemorate its 25th anniversary as a foundation that works to create a more inclusive society and which ensures equality in opportunities. The institution has vindicated the pandemic effects in the everyday life celebrating the day with the motto ‘Mental health in an unequal world”.
