{"id":11349,"date":"2020-10-19T07:56:06","date_gmt":"2020-10-19T04:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=11349"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:17","slug":"why-africa-needs-to-invest-in-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/10\/19\/why-africa-needs-to-invest-in-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Africa Needs to Invest in Mental Health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More than 13%<\/a> of the global burden of disease is due to disorders such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and substance abuse. Almost three-quarters<\/a> of this burden lies in low- and middle-income countries, because of extremely scarce health resources and investment. Many countries allocate less than 1% of the health budget<\/a> to mental health. Poor or non-existent access to evidence-based care also leads to the need for long-term care and increased costs of care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economic burden is also significant. The global cost of lost productivity<\/a> due to depression and anxiety disorders is an estimated US$1.15 trillion a year. Around 4.7 billion days<\/a> of productivity are lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is good evidence that these conditions are treatable. But the estimates of people in sub-Saharan Africa receiving treatment are jarring. Only 15% of South Africans<\/a> with mental health conditions receive treatment. In Ghana<\/a> and Ethiopia<\/a> the estimates are less than 10%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve spent decades researching mental health and health economics around the world. Our research has demonstrated<\/a> that, for example, peer support for treating perinatal depression shows benefits that far outweigh any costs incurred in delivering the treatment. Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 13% of the global burden of disease is due to disorders such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and substance abuse. Almost three-quarters of this burden lies in low- and middle-income countries, because of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}