China to Fill 54 Million Mental Health Service Gaps in 3 Years

The National Health Commission (NHC) announced on Tuesday that China plans to address the gaps in mental health services between 2025 and 2027. This initiative aims to tackle the rising mental health issues, especially among children and adolescents. The NHC stated that regional mental health centers will be established, and mental health hotlines will be set up nationwide, while actively developing key clinical specialties in mental health.

The announcement comes against the backdrop of several violent incidents in China in 2024, including a series of stabbing events and two car-ramming incidents, making mental health a pressing issue in Chinese society. The NHC further clarified that by 2025, there will be at least one hospital in every city providing outpatient services for mental and sleep disorders. The World Health Organization estimates that among China’s 1.4 billion population, approximately 54 million suffer from depression, and 41 million from anxiety.
Official news agency Xinhua reported comments from Xie Bin, Secretary of the Party Committee at the Shanghai Mental Health Center, noting that the prevalence of depression among adolescents is about 2%. Additionally, according to a three-year national action plan launched in 2023, it is expected that by this year, over 95% of schools in China will have full-time or part-time mental health education teachers.

As China’s economic growth slows and job opportunities become less stable, experts point out that economic pressure is increasingly impacting mental health. Nevertheless, official crime statistics show that China's violent crime rate is much lower than the global average.