US and India can work together on mental health, says US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy

US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy has said that mental health is an issue on which his country and India can work together, so that it not only benefits the two countries, but the entire world.

He said it is time to prioritise and accelerate the work on mental health, because the consequences have been too high, and they will only get worse unless we make this issue a priority.

"I'll just say this (mental health) is an issue where the US and India can work together, where we can learn from each other, where we can collaborate on programmes, where we can support each other, as we have in the past for six decades, on so many health issues," Murthy told reporters here on Friday.

He said he was proud of the US-India health partnership for six decades, during which both countries have worked on smallpox, polio, HIV, tuberculosis and Covid-19, and many other health challenges.

"This is a time for us to come together as two nations, to work on the issue of mental health, and the work that we do together can not only benefit our two countries, but can benefit the entire world. So I'm looking forward to what we can do together," he said.

Appointed by President Joe Biden, Murthy serves as the “America’s Top Doctor” and is charged with promoting and protecting public health. He is the first Surgeon General of Indian descent, and his parents hail from Karnataka.

Highlighting that during his visit to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) here there was discussion on numerous areas of collaboration that are already underway, he said the US and various health centres in the US government agencies are helping to support and fund research projects, and in some cases, collaboratively execute research projects focused on mental health.

"We're proud of that collaboration, and there are more ideas for how that collaboration can grow in the future, we have a lot that we can learn from each other. We have a lot that we can do with one another, and we talked about many of those challenges and spaces today...." he said.

Noting that the reason he made this trip was to focus on mental health, Murthy said, "It is becoming increasingly clear that we are living through a growing mental health crisis... it's hitting young people particularly hard." For too long, this has been an issue that we haven't talked about openly, he said. "There's been this unfortunate stigma and shame associated with mental health that prevents people from admitting that they're having a hard time. It makes it difficult for them to ask for help, even when that help is available." Pointing out that during this visit, he spent time in Delhi, in Mumbai, and Bengaluru with students, community organisations, hospitals and healthcare providers, and learned how India is experiencing and responding to mental health crisis, he said, "What I heard were about three important contributors that people are seeing in their lives that contribute to this mental health crisis. One was loneliness and isolation, which have become epidemics in the United States and around the world." "The second was the impact of social media on young people, and the third was the pressure that so many students say they are facing now, pressure which too often feels overwhelming and unbearable," he said.

Observing that mental health is no less important than physical health, and it ultimately influences physical health as well, the U.S Surgeon General said it's time to prioritise access to care, which continues to be a global challenge, and to focus on prevention, on getting at the root causes of what's driving this broader mental health challenge.

"In medicine, we focus a lot on treatment and often not enough on prevention. This is a time where we can't afford to do that. We have to do both," he said, as he highlighted that there's a lot of promising work underway, and that has given him hope.

Pointing out that social media has fundamentally changed the way we talk to each other and how we relate to one another, Murthy, citing from his interaction with students, said: "One of the consequences that we've seen is of the digital transformation of relationships, but it's something that we now need to address. We need to proactively build those social and emotional skills, relational skills for students." Advocating for legislative policy efforts to make social media safer, he said, "The policy changes that I've called for, apply to the United States of America, but the problem of social media, and its impact on youth mental health is being felt by many countries. I think it's important for all of us in our countries to examine this issue more deeply and ask ourselves, what can we do to ultimately protect children? And it has to go beyond just telling kids and parents to do better...

"...unless we make the platform safer, this is going to be hard for parents and kids to manage on their own," he added.