Closing the Mental Health Gap in Low-income Settings by Building Research Capacity: Perspectives from Mozambique

Background: Neuropsychiatric disorders are the leading cause of disability worldwide, accounting for 22.7% of all years lived with disability. Despite this global burden, fewer than 25% of affected individuals ever access mental health treatment; in low-income settings, access is much lower, althoug...

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Main Authors:	Annika C. Sweetland, Maria A. Oquendo, Mohsin Sidat, Palmira F. Santos, Sten H. Vermund, Cristiane S. Duarte, Melissa Arbuckle, Milton L. Wainberg
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Levy Library Press 2014-06-01
Series:	Annals of Global Health
Subjects:	global mental health research partnerships Mozambique PALOP
Online Access:	https://annalsofglobalhealth.org/articles/126

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spelling	doaj-art-8636ce8b8cd0467fbabdaf04caff76172018-09-17T13:36:47ZengLevy Library PressAnnals of Global Health2214-99962014-06-0180212613310.1016/j.aogh.2014.04.01464Closing the Mental Health Gap in Low-income Settings by Building Research Capacity: Perspectives from MozambiqueAnnika C. Sweetland0Maria A. Oquendo1Mohsin Sidat2Palmira F. Santos3Sten H. Vermund4Cristiane S. Duarte5Melissa Arbuckle6Milton L. Wainberg7Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NYDepartment of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NYUniversidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, MozambiqueMinistry of Health, Mental Health Department, Maputo, MozambiqueVanderbilt Institute for Global Health and Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TNDepartment of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NYDepartment of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NYDepartment of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NYBackground: Neuropsychiatric disorders are the leading cause of disability worldwide, accounting for 22.7% of all years lived with disability. Despite this global burden, fewer than 25% of affected individuals ever access mental health treatment; in low-income settings, access is much lower, although nonallopathic interventions through traditional healers are common in many venues. Three main barriers to reducing the gap between individuals who need mental health treatment and those who have access to it include stigma and lack of awareness, limited material and human resources, and insufficient research capacity. We argue that investment in dissemination and implementation research is critical to face these barriers. Dissemination and implementation research can improve mental health care in low-income settings by facilitating the adaptation of effective treatment interventions to new settings, particularly when adapting specialist-led interventions developed in high-resource countries to settings with few, if any, mental health professionals. Emerging evidence from other low-income settings suggests that lay providers can be trained to detect mental disorders and deliver basic psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological interventions when supervised by an expert. Objectives: We describe a new North-South and South-South research partnership between Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique), Columbia University (United States), Vanderbilt University (United States), and Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Brazil), to build research capacity in Mozambique and other Portuguese-speaking African countries. Conclusions: Mozambique has both the political commitment and available resources for mental health, but inadequate research capacity and workforce limits the country’s ability to assess local needs, adapt and test interventions, and identify implementation strategies that can be used to effectively bring evidence-based mental health interventions to scale within the public sector. Global training and research partnerships are critical to building capacity, promoting bilateral learning between and among low- and high-income settings, ultimately reducing the mental health treatment gap worldwide.https://annalsofglobalhealth.org/articles/126global mental healthresearch partnershipsMozambiquePALOP
institution	Open Data Bank
collection	Open Access Journals
building	Directory of Open Access Journals
language	English
format	Article
author	Annika C. Sweetland Maria A. Oquendo Mohsin Sidat Palmira F. Santos Sten H. Vermund Cristiane S. Duarte Melissa Arbuckle Milton L. Wainberg
spellingShingle	Annika C. Sweetland Maria A. Oquendo Mohsin Sidat Palmira F. Santos Sten H. Vermund Cristiane S. Duarte Melissa Arbuckle Milton L. Wainberg Closing the Mental Health Gap in Low-income Settings by Building Research Capacity: Perspectives from Mozambique Annals of Global Health global mental health research partnerships Mozambique PALOP
author_facet	Annika C. Sweetland Maria A. Oquendo Mohsin Sidat Palmira F. Santos Sten H. Vermund Cristiane S. Duarte Melissa Arbuckle Milton L. Wainberg
author_sort	Annika C. Sweetland
title	Closing the Mental Health Gap in Low-income Settings by Building Research Capacity: Perspectives from Mozambique
title_short	Closing the Mental Health Gap in Low-income Settings by Building Research Capacity: Perspectives from Mozambique
title_full	Closing the Mental Health Gap in Low-income Settings by Building Research Capacity: Perspectives from Mozambique
title_fullStr	Closing the Mental Health Gap in Low-income Settings by Building Research Capacity: Perspectives from Mozambique
title_full_unstemmed	Closing the Mental Health Gap in Low-income Settings by Building Research Capacity: Perspectives from Mozambique
title_sort	closing the mental health gap in low-income settings by building research capacity: perspectives from mozambique
publisher	Levy Library Press
series	Annals of Global Health
issn	2214-9996
publishDate	2014-06-01
description	Background: Neuropsychiatric disorders are the leading cause of disability worldwide, accounting for 22.7% of all years lived with disability. Despite this global burden, fewer than 25% of affected individuals ever access mental health treatment; in low-income settings, access is much lower, although nonallopathic interventions through traditional healers are common in many venues. Three main barriers to reducing the gap between individuals who need mental health treatment and those who have access to it include stigma and lack of awareness, limited material and human resources, and insufficient research capacity. We argue that investment in dissemination and implementation research is critical to face these barriers. Dissemination and implementation research can improve mental health care in low-income settings by facilitating the adaptation of effective treatment interventions to new settings, particularly when adapting specialist-led interventions developed in high-resource countries to settings with few, if any, mental health professionals. Emerging evidence from other low-income settings suggests that lay providers can be trained to detect mental disorders and deliver basic psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological interventions when supervised by an expert. Objectives: We describe a new North-South and South-South research partnership between Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique), Columbia University (United States), Vanderbilt University (United States), and Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Brazil), to build research capacity in Mozambique and other Portuguese-speaking African countries. Conclusions: Mozambique has both the political commitment and available resources for mental health, but inadequate research capacity and workforce limits the country’s ability to assess local needs, adapt and test interventions, and identify implementation strategies that can be used to effectively bring evidence-based mental health interventions to scale within the public sector. Global training and research partnerships are critical to building capacity, promoting bilateral learning between and among low- and high-income settings, ultimately reducing the mental health treatment gap worldwide.
topic	global mental health research partnerships Mozambique PALOP
url	https://annalsofglobalhealth.org/articles/126
_version_	1612554080145637376

Closing the Mental Health Gap in Low-income Settings by Building Research Capacity: Perspectives from Mozambique

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