Despite an expanding body of evidence suggesting that sustainable mental health care can be effectively integrated into existing health systems at relatively low cost, mental health has not received significant development assistance, according to Chunling Lu, from Harvard Medical School, United States, and colleagues in a Policy Forum article published in PLOS Medicine.
In their article the authors estimate the amount and patterns of development assistance for global mental health made by international donors between 2007 and 2013 using the Creditor Reporting System database. Although the authors found that development assistance for mental health did increase between 2007 and 2013, it remains low both in absolute terms and as a proportion of total development assistance for health. The authors estimate that the average annual development assistance for mental health between 2007 and 2013 was US$133.57 million, and the proportion of development assistance for health attributed to mental health was less than 1%.
The authors note, "[t]he pressing message of this study is that, to prioritize the actions proposed by global mental health advocates, [development assistance for global mental health] must increase, with emphasis on integrating a basic mental health package into the public health sector."
The authors conclude, "[t]he need for specified mental health funding should be clearly advocated to development aid agencies in well-resourced countries, by raising awareness of the burden of mental illness, its far-reaching socioeconomic impact and the benefits of treatment, and the current deficit in mental health financing."