On the Occasion of the World Mental Health Day Minding the Gap in Mental Health: The Health Promotion-Primary Care-based Solution

Abstract

Originally, public health actions turned to the living conditions that prevented the development of countries in the process of increasing urbanization, especially protecting their workers and tackling economic losses. The actions were primarily directed to infectious diseases. Today, the process of urbanization in most countries of the world is consolidated, and new health problems that affect communities’ quality of life should be addressed, with special attention to non-communicable-diseases (NCDs) (Beaglehole et al., 2011).^[1] Among NCDs, mental disorders are highly prevalent and the gap between this fact and the low proportion of individuals that receive proper care, mainly in low- and middle income countries, has been pointed by World Health Organization (WHO) (WHO, 2010). ^[2] In this October, 10th day is being commemorated the 20^th anniversary of World Mental Health Day^[3] and it is timely discuss effective and practical solutions to take care of that gap.