Background: There is a large treatment gap for mental, neurological or substance use (MNS) disorders. The 'Emerging mental health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)' (Emerald) research programme attempted to identify strategies to work towards reducing this gap through the strengthening of mental health systems.
Aims: To provide a set of proposed recommendations for mental health system strengthening in LMICs.
Method: The Emerald programme was implemented in six LMICs in Africa and Asia (Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda) over a 5-year period (2012-2017), and aimed to improve mental health outcomes in the six countries by building capacity and generating evidence to enhance health system strengthening.
Results: The proposed recommendations align closely with the World Health Organization's key health system strengthening 'building blocks' of governance, financing, human resource development, service provision and information systems; knowledge transfer is included as an additional cross-cutting component. Specific recommendations are made in the paper for each of these building blocks based on the body of data that were collected and analysed during Emerald.
Conclusions: These recommendations are relevant not only to the six countries in which their evidential basis was generated, but to other LMICs as well; they may also be generalisable to other non-communicable diseases beyond MNS disorders.
Declaration of interest: None.
Keywords: Global mental health; health system strengthening; health systems; healthcare delivery.