Abstract
Investing in Mental Health: Why Africa and South Asia Must Redo their Investment Cases
Author(s): Cyprian M. Mostert, Chi Udeh-Momoh, Olivera Nesic, Zul Merali, Rym Ayadi, Jo-An Occhipinti, Harris EyreBackground: There are irregularities in investment cases produced in Africa and South Asia. We discuss these irregularities and highlight the economic perspective that may be introduced to the current investment case to positively shift public policy. Methods: This mini review uses World Bank and World Health Organization data. We also comprehensively searched the medical literature for published articles on mental health investment. Results: We demonstrate that the current investment cases produce illogical outcomes that do not align with the risk-reward trade-off principle when estimating investment returns from alcohol programs. The investment cases also fail to cover the workforce deployment strategies to achieve tangible improvement in mental health outcomes. In most cases, the investment cases are biased towards mental health system funding and do not appreciate the factor that income inequality, the structure of the economy, and substance misuse influence mental health outlook aggressively. These factors may undermine the mental health system investment returns. Conclusion: There is a need to re-design investment cases in both continents that are logical to economic principles and can be implemented with more clarity to address the growing burden of mental ill-health. The current investment cases must present compelling evidence on how much mental ill-health can be averted by reducing income inequality and substance misuse and re-engineering the economy from a net negative-brain capital economy to a net positive-brain capital economy. These factors will strengthen the policy position for investing in mental health.