The impacts of US Government Funding Cuts on Global Mental Health

This year’s funding cuts by the US Government (on funds such as USAID and PEPFAR) and other countries' reduction of aid have been felt intensely around the world. Our joint work between the Global Mental Health Action Network and the Mental Health Innovation Network now outlines for the first time the impact of these funding cuts on global mental health.

These cuts have come in a context of a pre-existing monumental public financing gap in global mental health of at least US$200 billion. The majority of countries in the world are far from meeting even modest mental health funding targets.

Globally, only a minority of those living with mental health conditions receive treatment, which is usually of poor quality with far less coverage in low-and middle-income countries. Even less coverage occurs for interventions to prevent associated impacts of mental health conditions, with negligible coverage of interventions to prevent problems or promote mental wellbeing, even in high-income countries.

This implementation gap has widened since the pandemic and results in population-scale preventable suffering, lost potential, broad impacts and associated economic costs. It breaches the right to health and contributes to a lack of preparedness during public health emergencies.

Key data from our survey (that covers 131 programmes in 32 countries) include:

• 750,000 people losing access to services
• 50,000 people losing access to training to become mental health workers

More detail, case studies from national partners, and policy recommendations are on our website.