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Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health: conclusion of a 5-part series

Today we publish part 5 of a series providing a global perspective on integrating mental health care. The final article by Vikram Patel and colleagues sums up the series and argues that integrating mental health care has multiple benefits including:

  • improving access to mental health care
  • providing patient-centered care
  • avoiding fragmentation of health services
  • reducing stigma
  • optimising both mental health and physical health outcomes and
  • overall health system strengthening.

Here’s a full round-up of the whole series:

1. Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health: Integration in Research, Policy, and Practice by Pamela Y. Collins, Thomas R. Insel, Arun Chockalingam, Abdallah Daar and Yvonne T. Maddox, who set the scene for why mental health care should be combined with priority programs on maternal and child health, non-communicable diseases, and HIV, and how this might be done.

2. Grand Challenges: Integrating Maternal Mental Health into Maternal and Child Health Programmes by Atif Rahman, Pamela J. Surkan, Claudina E. Cayetano, Patrick Rwagatare, and Kim E. Dickson, who argue that integrating maternal mental health care will help advance maternal and child health.

3. Grand Challenges: Integrating Mental Health Care into the Non-Communicable Disease Agenda by Victoria K. Ngo, Adolfo Rubinstein, Vijay Ganju, Pamela Kanellis, Nasser Loza, Cristina Rabadan-Diehl, and Abdallah S. Daar, who discuss the benefits and requirements of collaborative care models, where non-communicable disease and mental health care are integrated and provided in the primary care setting.

4. Grand Challenges: Improving HIV Treatment Outcomes by Integrating Interventions for Co-Morbid Mental Illness by Sylvia Kaaya, Eddy Eustache, Ilana Lapidos-Salaiz, Seggane Musisi, Christina Psaros, and Lawrence Wissow, who discuss the importance of integrating mental health interventions into HIV prevention and treatment platforms.

5. Grand Challenges: Integrating Mental Health Services into Priority Health Care Platforms by Vikram Patel, Gary S. Belkin, Arun Chockalingam, Janice Cooper, Shekhar Saxena, and Jürgen Unützer, who discuss the competencies, operational innovation, and packages of care needed, and argue that integration will complement primary care system strengthening.

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