Raising awareness about mental illness, dispelling the stigma often associated with it, and encouraging people who experience stress and anxiety to seek help are key elements of the Sport for Health partnership between the Ministry of Public Health and the World Health Organization. The three-year partnership is using the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 as the platform to share important health messaging with a global audience.
According to the WHO, depression affects more than 260 million people in the world while around half of all mental health conditions start by age 14. “The benefits of sport and physical activity on people’s mental health and wellbeing are well documented. Spending time exercising, being physically active with your friends and family and ensuring you get enough rest can play an important role in boosting your mental health and wellbeing,” said Dr. Samya Al Abdulla, Qatar’s Deputy National Health Strategy Lead for Mental Health and Wellbeing and Senior Consultant, Family Physician at Primary Health Care Corporation.
Mental health is one of the health promotion pillars of the Sport for Health partnership, but both MoPH and WHO have been working hard to raise awareness of mental health through dedicated campaigns delivering similar messages.
“At WHO, we have been working since 2021 with FIFA on the #ReachOut initiative which aims to raise awareness and reduce stigma, encourage people to seek help when they need it, and take actions every day for better mental health. The support of past and current football players has been helping underline the importance of greater awareness around mental health,” said Dr Dévora Kestel, Director of WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Use.
In Qatar, public attitudes to mental health continue to improve thanks to large-scale public awareness campaigns like the national ‘Are You OK?’ campaign. Launched in 2020, the initiative aims to encourage people to talk more openly about their emotional wellbeing and has resulted in greater numbers of people seeking help from mental health services.
But greater action is also needed, in terms of investment, on all fronts to increase understanding of mental illness and reduce associated stigma, as well as scale up services to treat mental disorders and ensure access to quality and affordable care.
“We know that the fear of stigma is a key factor preventing many people from seeking help from mental health services,” said Iain Tulley, Qatar’s National Health Strategy Lead for Mental Health and Wellbeing. “To address this and ensure people have easy access to confidential psychological support we have established a National Mental Health Helpline and this has been one of the most impactful developments in recent years within the Mental Health Service.”
Tailoring services to meet the needs of the many communities served within Qatar has improved the health and wellbeing of citizens and residents. The health sector’s screening of craft and manual workers, with dedicated access to free and local clinics, has been successful in providing psychological support to this population group.
An enormous amount of progress has been made in recent years, in Qatar and globally, to raise public awareness and dispel the myths and stigma that surround mental health. The Sport for Health partnership aims to build on this progress and use FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ as a catalyst to raise awareness of mental health and to stimulate positive change. As the most watched sporting event in the world, the tournament offers a wonderful platform to promote health to communities across the globe.
Dr Khalid Saeed, WHO’s focal point for mental health in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, said the Sport For Health partnership is helping bring increased attention to the importance of mental health.
“Mental and physical health are inextricably linked and sports is a clear illustration of the tangible links and benefits which accrue from these” said Dr Saeed. “This underscores why mental health needs to be conceived as more than a set of disorders. Mental health underpins all human endeavors and hence should be part and parcel of all developmental and humanitarian policies and actions.”
Source: Ministry of Public Health