Background: The World Economic Forum (2011) concluded that the economic impact of mental illness is the single most important contributor among all non-communicable diseases to loss of productivity. The 21 economies represented by Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) responded to that information with efforts to address mental health as an integral component of economic development.
Aim: In order to help assess the progress of APEC region compared to other regions of the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) granted us access to a subset of the 2014 Mental Health Atlas database containing health indicators from all 21 APEC economies.