Intellectual disability: an unresolved world health challenge.

S122 salud pública de méxico / vol. 50, suplemento 2 de 2008 sions with respect to ID. The time dedicated to training medical students about ID is less than one elective hour in the majority of countries, and most educational programs in psychiatry do not include ID, in spite of the fact that, as indicated by The WHO atlas on intellectual disability (Lecomte and Mercier, in this issue), roughly one-third of the persons with ID present serious psychiatric problems and that, worldwide, the psychiatrist is the first health professional to provide care to persons with ID. In light of the data and the current capacity for intervention, it is not acceptable that ID continues to be the most unresolved issue for national and international health systems. Fortunately, a change in this tendency has been produced in recent years. Diverse international associations such as the IASSID, NADD and MHDI have taken on an important role in the visualization of ID as a worldwide health and social problem and they have aided in the dissemination and use of international evaluation and diagnostic instruments such as the recent Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual on Intellectual Disability.3 Some international research networks, such as IDRESNET, POMONA and WHO, have facilitated the development of health indicators and international comparison systems for services. This issue of the journal Salud Pública de México covers both general aspects and their relations with health habits from a broad perspective, as well as the provision of services, health policy and ethical factors. For the first time, a public health journal is dedicating an issue to ID, which constitutes a milestone for this metasyndrome to be considered a public health priority.