The WHO's World Mental Health Survey Initiative is a response to the scarcity of comparable data in mental health, especially in the developing world. The surveys were made possible by the introduction of diagnostic methods such as the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) and WHO's Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) in the late 1900s, which brought consistency to diagnostic criteriLebanon is one of the 14 countries in which the surveys have been undertaken and is one of the least developed of those, along with China, Columbia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Ukraine. To understand the meaning of the findings in Lebanon that are presented in today's Lancet by Elie Karam and colleagues (see record 2006-05165-001), I compare the findings with results from the other countries surveyed and with a few other major studies in the Middle East or in countries with economic, social, and cultural conditions that are similar to Lebanon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)