Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2015 Aug 19:2:e17.
doi: 10.1017/gmh.2015.15. eCollection 2015.

Information for global mental health

A Lora  1 , P Sharan  2
Affiliations
Review

Information for global mental health

A Lora et al. Glob Ment Health (Camb). .

Abstract

Background: Information is needed for development of mental health (MH) services; and particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LAMICs), where the MH systems are relatively weak. World Health Organization (WHO) has worked intensively during the last 15 years for developing a strategy in the field of MH information.

Methods: The paper analyzes WHO instruments developed in this area [MH Atlas series and WHO Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS)].

Results: Data from Atlas series and WHO-AIMS demonstrated that the role of information is often neglected at all the steps: from data collection and processing to analysis, dissemination and utilization, particularly in LAMIC. By implementing several sets of feasible MH indicators WHO has technically supported the improvement of the MH information systems in LAMICs.

Conclusions: In the last few years the importance of information in MH has increased and has been successfully highlighted; but a lot of work still needs to be done for achieving a minimum set of MH indicators and reliable data that can be used by both high-income countries and LAMIC.

Keywords: Mental health indicators; World Health Organization; mental health information system.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Treated outpatients by income group.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Human resources by income group.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. EMERALD. Emerging Mental Health Systems in Low- and Middle-income Countries. (http://www.emerald-project.eu/). Accessed 2 May 2015.
    1. Green A. (1999). An Introduction to Health Planning in Developing Countries, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    1. Mental Health and Poverty Project (MHaPP). (http://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/development/n_12_mental_health_i...). Accessed 2 May 2015.
    1. Morris J, Lora A, McBain R, Saxena S (2013). Global Mental Health Resources and Services:A WHO Survey of 184 Countries. Public Health Reviews 34, 1–18.
    1. PRIME. Programme for Improvement of Mental health care. (http://www.centreforglobalmentalhealth.org/projects-research/prime-progr...). Accessed 2 May 2015.

LinkOut - more resources