With heightened concern over the impact of excessive use of technology - especially social media addiction and other behavioural addictions - on mental health in cities, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) is set to take up an urban mental health survey in six mega cities and three tier-II cities.
Announcing this on Friday, NIMHANS director Prathima Murthy said the survey will cover nearly 20,000 people in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Hubballi-Dharwad, and Mysuru in Karnataka. “We are planning to survey 3,600 people from each of these cities. The survey will look at various urban mental health issues including memory disturbances, behavioural addiction such as social media and gaming addiction, anxiety, somatization disorder, children’s issues, their mental wellbeing, and impact of COVID-19 on people,” said Dr Murthy.
Stating that the urban mental health survey is the second phase of the National Mental Health survey released by NIMHANS in October 2016, Dr. Murthy said: “There is a need to study mental health issues in mega cities as there is enough evidence that shows urbanisation affects mental health.”
According to the National Mental Health Survey of India 2015-16, the prevalence of any mental morbidity at any given point in time was 13.1% in urban metros, 9.3% in urban non–metros, and 9.2% in rural areas. “COVID-19 pandemic with its disastrous effect across cities of India has brought to the forefront the mental health concerns/issues of city dwellers. With the current rate of urbanization and with ample evidence that urbanization affects mental health, there is an immediate need to address mental health in cities of India,” she said.
The Department of Epidemiology, Centre for Public health in collaboration with Community Psychiatry Unit and Tele-Medicine Centre, Department of Psychiatry at NIMHANS organised a national level symposium on urban mental health titled “Cities and Mental Health : COVID-19 Pandemic unfolded mental health crisis in cities of India.”
Former NIMHANS director G. Guraraj, who made a presentation on “Urbanisation and Mental Health: Need for an Urban Public Health Focus” at the symposium, said as per the National Mental Health survey the treatment gap in Indian cities was nearly 90%. “By 2030, India will have more than 68 cities with more than one million population. Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad are projected to become megacities. By 2050, one in every two individuals in India is expected to be residing in urban areas,” he added.
