Inequitable and ineffective : exclusion of mental health from the post-2015 development agenda

CITATION: Tsai, A. C. & Tomlinson, M. 2015. Inequitable and ineffective : exclusion of mental health from the post-2015 development agenda. PLoS Medicine, 12(6):e1001846, doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001846.The original publication is available at http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicineThe Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted at the turn of the century, represented a milestone in global development by committing United Nations member states to eradicating extreme poverty and achieving specific targets over the subsequent decade and a half. At this time the world's attention is increasingly focused on the post-2015 development agenda, which will be unveiled in September of this year in the form of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Given that mental health and other non-communicable diseases were conspicuously omitted from the MDGs, and have only been weakly mentioned in draft SDG targets, in this essay we argue for a place for mental health on the post-2015 development agenda. Its continued exclusion will not only contribute to the failure of the SDGs given the centrality of mental health in most aspects of human development and well-being but also formalize our collective failure to care for the most vulnerable among us.Publisher's versio