Providing Sustainable Mental and Neurological Health Care in Ghana and Kenya: Workshop Summary

This treatment gap is particularly high in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Challenges to MNS care in SSA countries include a lack of trained mental health professionals, few mental health facilities, and low prioritization for MNS disorders in budget allocations. African countries, on average, have one psychiatrist for every 2 million people, whereas European countries have one psychiatrist per 12,000 people.

Expanding on previous efforts to address the development and improvement of sustainable mental health systems in SSA, the Institute of Medicine convened this 2015 workshop series, bringing together key stakeholders to examine country-specific opportunities to improve the health care infrastructure in order to better prevent, diagnose, and treat MNS disorders. Providing Sustainable Mental and Neurological Health Care in Ghana and Kenya summarizes the presentations and discussions from these workshops.