Challenges and opportunities for e-mental health policy: an Estonian case study

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melita Sogomonjan
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Mental Health Policy ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

scholarly journals EVITA 2.0, an updated framework for understanding evidence-based mental health policy agenda-setting: tested and informed by key informant interviews in a multilevel comparative case study

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Votruba ◽  
Jonathan Grant ◽  
Graham Thornicroft
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Mental Health Policy ◽  
Mental Health Research ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Science Methods ◽  
Behavioural Science

Abstract Background Mental health remains a neglected issue on the global health policy agenda, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), and the translation of research evidence into policy and practice is slow. The new EVITA framework was developed to improve mental health evidence uptake and policy agenda-setting in LMICs. In addition, behavioural science methods may be able to support knowledge translation to policy. Methods Using a mixed-methods study design, we applied and tested the newly developed EVITA 1.1 framework against three case studies related to South Africa at the district, national and international levels. In-depth interviews with 26 experts were conducted between August and November 2019, transcribed, coded and analysed in NVivo, using iterative categorization. The data were analysed against both the EVITA framework and the MINDSPACE framework for behavioural insights. Results In our case study comparison, we found that (1) research translation to the policy agenda occurs in a complex, fluid system which includes multiple “research clouds”, “policy spheres” and other networks; (2) mental health research policy agenda-setting is based on key individuals and intermediaries and their interrelationships; and (3) key challenges and strategies for successful research to policy agenda impact are known, but are frequently not strategically implemented, such as including all stakeholders to overcome the policy implementation gap. Our data also suggest that behavioural science methods can be strategically applied to support knowledge translation to policy agenda-setting. Conclusion We found that the EVITA framework is useful for understanding and improving mental health research policy interrelationships to support evidence uptake to the policy agenda, and that behavioural science methods are effective support mechanisms. The revised EVITA 2.0 framework therefore includes behavioural insights, for improved mental health policy agenda-setting in LMICs. More research is needed to understand whether EVITA can be applied to other LMICs and to high-income contexts.

scholarly journals Developing a National Mental Health Policy: A Case Study from Uganda

PLoS Medicine ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. e1001319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Ssebunnya ◽  
Fred Kigozi ◽  
Sheila Ndyanabangi
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Mental Health Policy ◽  
National Mental Health

Mental Health Policy Development: Case Study of Cambodia

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Stockwell ◽  
Harvey Whiteford ◽  
Clare Townsend ◽  
Donald Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Mental Health Policy ◽  
Health Plans ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Policy Development Process ◽  
Key Issues

Objective: To identify key issues in the mental health policy development process in Cambodia that will contribute to an increased understanding of how mental health policy gets on the public policy agenda, how it stays there and why policy implementation fails or succeeds. The research was formative because mental health policy analysis is a young and newly emerging discipline. Method: A retrospective case study methodology was used to research the development of the draft Cambodian Mental Health Plan 2003–2022. Ten key informants involved in the policy development process were interviewed using a semistructured questionnaire designed to collect qualitative data about the policy formation process, stakeholders and context. Results: The research identified key issues influencing mental health policy development. These are the need to include the Ministry of Health (MoH) in the development of mental health plans; the significance of timing; the usefulness of mental health plans; the impact of the post-conflict context on policy development; and the evolution of stakeholder groups and their need to learn how to debate the merits of mental health reform. Conclusions: The findings are formative given methodology limitations. However, important insight is provided into the dynamics of the policy development processes that occurred in Cambodia. This allows the generation of important hypotheses for future mental health policy process research in both Cambodia and other post-conflict developing countries.

The Global Mental Health movement and its impact on traditional healing in India: A case study of the Balaji temple in Rajasthan

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (6) ◽  
pp. 766-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anubha Sood
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Global Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Policy ◽  
Traditional Healing ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Health Discourse ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Health Agenda

This article considers the impact of the global mental health discourse on India's traditional healing systems. Folk mental health traditions, based in religious lifeways and etiologies of supernatural affliction, are overwhelmingly sought by Indians in times of mental ill-health. This is despite the fact that the postcolonial Indian state has historically considered the popularity of these indigenous treatments regressive, and claimed Western psychiatry as the only mental health system befitting the country's aspirations as a modern nation-state. In the last decade however, as global mental health concerns for scaling up psychiatric interventions and instituting bioethical practices in mental health services begin to shape India's mental health policy formulations, the state's disapproving stance towards traditional healing has turned to vehement condemnation. In present-day India, traditional treatments are denounced for being antithetical to global mental health tenets and harmful for the population, while biomedical psychiatry is espoused as the only legitimate form of mental health care. Based on ethnographic research in the Hindu healing temple of Balaji, Rajasthan, and analysis of India's mental health policy environment, I demonstrate how the tenor of the global mental health agenda is negatively impacting the functioning of the country's traditional healing sites. I argue that crucial changes in the therapeutic culture of the Balaji temple, including the disappearance of a number of key healing rituals, are consequences of global mental health-inspired policy in India which is reducing the plural mental health landscape.

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