How Awareness Shapes Mental Health Care
For many people, the most difficult part about living with a mental health condition is not the symptoms but the distance between their distress and care.
According to data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO), over 1 billion people are living with some mental health condition. Among these, anxiety and depression are highly prevalent in all countries and communities, affecting people of all ages and income levels.
For the majority of individuals, they go through these concerns often without even being aware or able to receive timely, appropriate care. In tier 2 or tier 3 countries, 76%-85% people with severe mental health conditions receive no treatment at all. Even in tier 1 countries, the treatment gap remains high, between 35%-50%.
Early mental health symptoms like persistent sadness, fatigue, insomnia, and emotional exhaustion often get dismissed or overlooked as mere stress or something that can pass by. Without awareness or accessible support, these symptoms are just resisted instead of being acknowledged and worked on.
Within this system, stigma remains a strong hurdle. In many communities, emotional distress is often seen as a weakness, failure, or something that should be dealt with quietly to avoid being labelled.
The global impact of mental health concerns
Mental health conditions occur due to multiple factors–socio-economic conditions, environmental factors, personal losses and more.
In tier 2 and tier 3 countries, the gap between mental health care and need is even wider. A larger population is served by a few professionals. This is further complicated by accessibility in a few cities, with approximately 1 professional for every 100,000 people. These factors make it almost impossible for marginalised people to seek care and support or even acknowledge their mental health concerns.
Beyond this gap, another major factor is the geopolitical concerns that lead to conflicts, forced displacement, climate change, and economic crisis. All of these affect the mental health of major populations. These experiences often get lost in silence due to the weight of humanitarian needs.
Urban countries face their own set of challenges. Economic conditions, unemployment, peer pressure, social isolation and other factors shape experiences that manifest as stress, burnout, emotional exhaustion, loneliness and more.
Far-reaching effects of excluding mental health from development planning have rippled out into education, workforce participation, family stability, and physical health. Addressing mental health is necessary, not only from a clinical standpoint, but also from a social and developmental perspective. Lack of early access to integrated and available support for individuals leads to a hidden cost of distress quietly passed on through individuals and communities alike.
How does the gap look in everyday life?
Distress rarely appears as a single breaking point. More often, it shows up in small, ongoing moments that are noticed, then explained away as something else. Constant fatigue is explained as “just a busy job.” Irritability is thought to be due to not getting enough sleep. Trouble concentrating is perceived as ageing or outside distraction. Emotional detachment is perceived as independence. These beliefs are supported by social conventions that reward endurance and discourage vulnerability.
When people identify something as feeling wrong, getting help feels out of proportion with that experience. People hesitate to label their experience as serious enough to need assistance; they worry about “overreacting” or “not being able to cope.” The language of mental health can feel unfamiliar or frightening to some people, making it difficult to describe what they are experiencing as “real.”
There are also practical impediments to bridging the gap. Finding the right therapist, the difficulty of accessing appropriate appointments, and having to miss work all quickly become enormous challenges — especially when your motivation and energy are already depleted. Sometimes, inaction can feel like self-preservation instead of being neglectful.
The stigma surrounding mental health is a social structure influencing what people can feel safe to disclose, acknowledge and/or seek assistance for.
Within some communities, experience of emotional suffering continues to be defined by moral or cultural constructs instead of health-based definitions. To experience distress is an indication of being weak, undisciplined and/or unable to cope. Therefore, the message is to be “resilient”, “persevere” and to “focus on the positives”, even where distress is continuous and overwhelming. The result of these implications is that an individual learns to diminish their experience rather than to address it.
The social stigma associated with mental health is also perpetuated in daily society. For example, in the workplace, there can often be recognition for performance and productivity, but very rarely is there an acknowledgement of the existence of chronic fatigue or burnout. In schools, achievement is recognised above emotional well-being. In family units, there is a reluctance to have open and honest dialogue due to fear of judgment from the outside or fear of losing an opportunity or being made responsible or accountable. This means that in a context where stigma exists, silence is an act of protection, and there is a perceived risk associated with speaking up, and a sense of responsibility to remain silent.
Over time, these factors take on a much larger presence and affect the mental well-being of a huge population.
Bridging the gap
There is no single solution for bridging the gap between distress and care. Rather, systems must understand how individuals experience mental health challenges and respond sooner, more flexibly and with less friction.
One key way to change mental healthcare is to shift from a crisis-driven model. Currently, support systems only provide an intervention during a severe mental health crisis, therefore excluding the many months or years between when someone starts struggling with their mental health and when they reach a point of crisis.
By putting a greater emphasis on awareness, early detection, diagnosis and assistance, we could prevent experiencing severe mental health challenges or even being disabled due to a mental health challenge from becoming a reality for many people. Early intervention for mental health issues exists in other areas of healthcare and is an integrative part of mainstream approaches to healthcare; however, it is currently lacking in the delivery of mental health services.
How does Amaha bridge this gap?
At Amaha, mental healthcare is built to fit into people’s lives easily. Not having to be used only in times of crisis or severity. Structured assessments help people understand their distress early, while coordinated teams of psychiatrists and therapists ensure care feels connected rather than fragmented.
For most individuals, seeking support from a clinician or even going to a clinic might seem like a big step. That’s where digital care tools play an important part in providing a substitute for it.
Digital self-care tools complement clinical care by bridging the gap between people who aren’t prepared, able or feel safe to seek in-person support. Amaha’s app is designed with this challenge in mind. The app provides easy, low-pressure activities, tools, trackers and psychoeducation that can be used at one’s own pace, assuring complete confidentiality.
By coming halfway and meeting people at their own pace whenever they are, these tools help reduce the gap between distress and care. It can be used to acknowledge the fact that not everyone going through mental health concerns can start their journey at a clinic.