Lancet's third installment of a six-part series on global mental health discusses failures to address depression, schizophrenia, alcohol abuse, and developmental disorders in low- and middle-income countries. A review of 11,500 studies, or nearly 85,000 people in 17 countries, lead an international panel of authors to conclude that gaps in research and systems, shortages of community resources, and the failure to treat with price-effective interventions penalize low and middle-income countries:
Most mental health systems in the world are dominated by large custodial psychiatric hospitals that squander resources on ineffective and inappropriate interventions. Furthermore, attempts to create national integrated primary care or community-care programmes have often not lived up to initial expectations.
