A workshop on strengthening mental health surveillance in the Subregion of Central America and the Dominican Republic was held June 14-16 in San Salvador, El Salvador. Participants included colleagues from PAHO's Headquarters and country offices in Nicaragua and El Salvador, as well as representatives from six countries: El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.
The workshop was divided into two themes, one on mental health surveillance and the other on alcohol surveillance. Each country sent representatives from the mental health and alcohol technical units as well as from surveillance units.
Over the three days, participants discussed challenges and opportunities regarding surveillance of mental health and alcohol indicators agreed upon at the global and regional level.
At the end of the second day, they approved a compendium of basic mental health indicators to be included in the participating countries' information systems. They also arranged the creation of a Subregional Observatory on Mental Health, based at the Observatory of the Central American Committee of Health Ministers (COMISCA, for its acronym in Spanish). Participants also developed a timeline of activities to strengthen surveillance of the selected indicators. Finally, at the end of the third day, they defined recommendations to strengthen the collection of alcohol data through the global survey on alcohol and health.
