About
A shared measure for a hidden crisis
Mental health shapes productivity, healthcare costs, safety and family life, yet there is no open, regularly updated way to compare countries. This project sets out to build one.
Who is behind it
The Global Mental Health Index is a research initiative of Paracelsus Recovery, a mental health treatment centre in Zurich.
Independence
An index published by a treatment provider has to earn trust, as indices sponsored by insurers or pharmaceutical companies do.
The project proposes five commitments to make that possible. They are pending sign-off by the project team.
Open method
The methodology is versioned, with a public changelog. Any change is explained before it is applied.
Open data and code
Every figure traces to a stored response from an official source. Anyone can re-run the pipeline and reproduce the results.
Published uncertainty
Countries are shown with rank intervals, not just a position.
External review
An independent statistical audit before the first ranking, a named advisory board and a funding statement.
No commercial use of restricted data
Sources whose terms limit commercial use stay out until permission is granted, or until the index has an independent publisher.
History
2020
Twelve categories and about 65 indicators for 167 countries, 2009 to 2019. Built almost entirely on a third-party dataset that cannot be reused, it stalled under the manual work of keeping it current.
2026
Version 2 starts again from primary publishers, with data collection automated and every step documented.
What comes next
Sources and permissions
Open data from Eurostat and the US CDC is loaded and national sources have been reviewed for all 33 jurisdictions. Licence permissions and the remaining design decisions are being settled.
First index build
Full collection, then normalisation, weighting, sensitivity analysis and independent review.
Open access for people and machines
A public API, stable CSV and JSON files, an
llms.txtfile and an MCP server so AI agents can query the index directly.Global coverage
Beyond the first focus set, to all countries with comparable data.
Contact
For questions about the data or method, or to suggest a source, contact the team through paracelsus-recovery.com.
This site presents population statistics for research. It is not medical advice. If you are struggling, please contact a local health service or emergency number.