This year we extend and elaborate the notion of "integration of care" by focusing on the connection and relationship of mental health disorders and chronic illnesses. As the World Health Organization has noted: Four chronic illnesses - cardiovascular, diabetes, cancer and respiratory illnesses - are responsible for 60 percent of the world's deaths. Our understanding of the relationship between these chronic illnesses and mental illness has increased dramatically in the last two decades. We now know that persons with these chronic illnesses have much higher rates of depression and anxiety than the general population. Major depression.
