Global health reciprocal innovation to address mental health and well-being: strategies used and lessons learnt

Abstract

Over the past two decades there have been major advances in the development of interventions promoting mental health and well-being in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), including delivery of care by non-specialist providers, incorporation of mobile technologies and development of multilevel community-based interventions. Growing inequities in mental health have led to calls to adopt similar strategies in high-income countries (HIC), learning from LMIC. To overcome shared challenges, it is crucial for projects implementing these strategies in different global settings to learn from one another. Our objective was to examine cases in which mental health and well-being interventions originating in or conceived for LMIC were implemented in the USA. The cases included delivery of psychological interventions by non-specialists, HIV-related stigma reduction programmes, substance use mitigation strategies and interventions to promote parenting skills and family functioning. We summarise commonly used strategies, barriers, benefits and lessons learnt for the transfer of these innovative practices among LMIC and HIC. Common strategies included intervention delivery by non-specialists and use of digital modalities to facilitate training and increase reach. Common barriers included lack of reimbursement mechanisms for care delivered by non-specialists and resistance from professional societies. Despite US investigators’ involvement in most of the original research in LMIC, only a few cases directly involved LMIC researchers in US implementation. In order to achieve greater equity in global mental health and well-being, more efforts and targeted funding are needed to develop best practices for global health reciprocal innovation and iterative learning in HIC and LMIC.