Quick Summary: In the digital era where western countries are very close to meeting their healthcare needs, the African continent seems to be far behind, with outdated health legalization and resourced policies. The continent has a very low mental health workforce making the situation worse for the people who need emergency access to the therapy. Therefore it’s time to scale up innovative, practical, and locally tailored solutions developed for mental health awareness, treatment, and monitoring in Africa with international and local investment.
Though mental health is an integral part of overall wellbeing, it has taken a backseat to the more visible diseases such as AIDS, malaria, and Covid-19 in the low-income countries of Africa
Major challenges in the African region
There are major challenges in the region concerning mental health laws and policy reforms as most of them are outdated. Financing, research, training, and the integration of mental health into primary healthcare are also some other challenges.
Investing in the mental health app development in Africa can solve major issues
In the developing countries of Africa, using the traditional one-to-one approach for mental health treatment doesn’t sound realistic due to the scarcity of mental health professionals and poor infrastructure.
The region has 1.4 mental health workers per 100,000 people as compared to the global average of 9.0 per 100,000. Also, it performs relatively poorly in concern with the availability of psychiatrists, number of hospital beds, and other facilities.
However, the rapid development in mobile technology and mental health applications has great potential to make mental health treatment accessible to the African people.
According to WHO, mobile health technologies are a beneficial resource for low-cost mental health treatment and rising awareness among individuals. The evidence-based digital intervention can be used as a front-line method of treating mental illness using apps in African countries.
This is the time to scale up the innovative, practical, and the locally tailored solution developed for mental health awareness, treatment, and monitoring in Africa with international and local investment.
Top app features you must consider if you’re planning to build mental health in Africa
Type of mental health apps you can build in Africa
Different people face different mental health crises with regards to what they deal with every day in their personal life. Meaning, there are several mental health app ideas as there is no single mental health challenge across Africa.
The following are the top mental health app ideas you can implement in African countries.
The entire process we follow to create outstanding mental health app in Africa
Some mobile apps aiding mental health in Africa
Wrapping up:
There is no health without mental health.
Still, mental health has failed to grab the attention of global public health globally. The situation is even worse in the low-income communities of Africa due to the factors we discussed above such as low budget, and outdated policies. However, investing in mental health is critical to meet the sustainable development goal in any country.
If you have any plan to invest in the mental health application with a high ROI expected, we’re here to help you!
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