The peer review article entitled Mental Health Policy Developments in Latin America, published in 2000 provides a brief synopsis of the policies that a few of the 22 countries in Latin America have created in order to tackle the stigmas and lack of mental health resources made available to Latin Americans.
By Manisha Satheesh
The peer review article entitled Mental Health Policy Developments in Latin America, published in 2000 provides a brief synopsis of the policies that a few of the 22 countries in Latin America have created in order to tackle the stigmas and lack of mental health resources made available to Latin Americans. According to the article’s research, at the end of the 1980’s, 88.3 million people were diagnosed with mood, anxiety, and substance-abuse disorders, schizophrenia, and significant cognitive deterioration secondary to drug and alcohol abuse. As an increasing amount of the population showed signs of decreasing mental health, medical resources became more and more scarce. Out of the 300,000 licenses physicians, only about 11,000 are psychiatrists and show varying levels of competence. Of these 11,000, more than 60% are concentrated in the metropolitan areas rather than the rural regions of Latin America, making them physically and sometimes economically unreachable. Currently in Latin America, there are 4 main sectors that assume responsibility for mental health care.
The public sector, led by the Mental Health Division in
the Ministries of Health has a significant lack of support from the government and only covers between 10-55% of the population in most countries. Recently, the private sector reaches more of the population even though mental health coverage is still uneven. A third sector, the charity sector, has lost ground in many
countries with the implementation of policies that hold health as a right rather than as an expression of public compassion. Lastly, the folkloric sector, although vaguely defined and a source of continuous controversy, embodies the informal care systems that are not yet fully understood or accepted by the overall population. These sectors, while all built with the purpose to expand on mental health care in order to address the rising concerns of individuals in Latin America, are not economically supported or fully developed.
In the efforts to integrate psychosocial and biomedical components in the implementation of policies, its proven most difficult to create a billable and consensus understanding of what mental health encapsulates. These need to include not only the appropriate definition of mental health, mental health services, mental health agencies, and mental illness that is crucial but also programmes, direct services, recipients, activities, functional impairment or disability, and other concepts should be clearly defined as well.
Written by Manisha Satheesh
Relevant Citation:
Alarcón R.D., and S.A. Aguilar-Gaxiola. “Mental Health Policy Developments in Latin America.” World Health Organization Archives Bulletin , World Health Organization, 2000, origin.who.int/bulletin/archives/78(4)483.pdf.