In 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that around one in eight people globally were living with a mental disorder. Positive mental health is vital to individual and public health, and society in general. However, there is growing evidence that anxiety, stress, depression, and other mental disorders are increasing worldwide, exacerbated by an alarming shortage of trained mental health workers and integrated mental health services. This paper builds on our 2022 World Government Summit (WGS) report on making wellbeing a national priority, and proposes key measures and initiatives that governments can introduce now to deliver sustained results. Our key recommendations for policymakers focus on three areas where well-designed and adequately funded policies and programs will deliver the maximum return on investment in terms of improving the mental wellbeing of all citizens.
- Increase government funding for the recruitment, clinical training, and deployment of mental health professionals
- Broaden access to digital mental healthcare and mental wellbeing products and services in developed and developing countries
- Collect and process more comprehensive, detailed data on child and adolescent mental healthcare and wellbeing, leveraging new technologies and data analytics
Report highlights
- Around the world, patients struggle to gain access to mental healthcare and support from properly trained clinicians. The general shortage of qualified mental health professionals across the GCC is exacerbated by the lack of relevant university-level degree programs in clinical psychology and psychiatry
- An increasing number of governments now see wellbeing as integral to their citizens’ general health, and the health of society. The challenge is to maintain momentum, leveraging new technologies and advances in DTx, while ensuring that mental health and wellbeing products and services are regulated as rigorously as their counterparts in physical healthcare.
- Governments should never lose sight of the fact that in mental health, as in all healthcare, prevention of illness is always better than treatment – both for the patient and for budgets
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