Outlining the Scope for Public Sector Involvement in Mental Health
The paper documents the large and increasingly important contribution made by mental disorders to the global burden of disease. Disease burden does not provide sufficient justification for public intervention (understood as financing, provision, ma...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2002/08/3492356/outlining-scope-public-sector-involvement-mental-health http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13761 |
| Summary: | The paper documents the large and
increasingly important contribution made by mental disorders
to the global burden of disease. Disease burden does not
provide sufficient justification for public intervention
(understood as financing, provision, mandates, regulation or
information) in the field of mental health. While there
exists cost-effective interventions for some mental health
disorders, the existence of such interventions, on their
own, does not provide a sufficient basis for public
intervention. The popular burden of disease and
cost-effectiveness arguments therefore provide a weak
foundation upon which to build a case for public
intervention - and, a fortiori, for World Bank support to
such intervention - in the field of mental health. This
paper applies an algorithm for decision-making borrowed from
Musgrove (1999) that orders the main criteria for public
intervention to the field of mental health. The locus for
reform efforts in the field is defined by the gap between
the existing and the desirable features of mental health
financing and provision. |
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