A landmark study on the mental health of Brazilian children and adolescents shows that anxiety is the leading cause of disability across all age groups between 5 and 29, surpassing every physical illness from age 15 onward, when anxiety and depression top the overall rankings, with a greater impact on girls.
Published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas using GBD 2023 (Global Burden of Disease) data, the study is the first to provide a detailed breakdown by five-year age groups. It estimates that more than 15 million Brazilians aged 5 to 29 (20.91% of that population) live with a mental disorder, while another 2.5 million have substance use disorders.
Among children aged 5 to 9, more than 10% meet the criteria for a mental disorder, a proportion that rises to nearly 25% among those aged 25 to 29. The study also records 5,402 suicide deaths each year among people aged 10 to 29, with 77% occurring among males, making suicide the third leading cause of premature death from age 15 onward. Among Indigenous populations, suicide rates are more than twice the national average.
According to psychiatrist Christian Kieling, the study's lead author, the age cutoff of 18 in Brazil's health services undermines care precisely when demand is at its highest. Researcher Claudia Buchweitz highlights the need for policies specifically targeting boys and young men, a group that is less effectively reached by mental health services. The authors also point to a lack of data outside the states of São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul and advocate expanding access to care through community-based services, citing Australia's Headspace model as an example.
