| Summary: | Community mental health care in India started in the 1970s. It was long felt that integrating mental health with primary care by training and supporting primary health care personnel to deliver basic mental health care was the best way to provide care for those in need of mental health services in the developing countries. This has been recently echoed by an international consortium as well. The national mental health program, and later the district mental health program, has been right and ambitious steps in this direction. However, effective coverage for severe mental disorders and epilepsy continues to be very low. While there are vast variations across regions of the country, the highest treatment gaps are in rural areas because of inequities in the distribution of mental health resources and variable implementation of mental health program across states. We now know what to do, but we have to begin doing it effectively. It is indeed high time that we prioritize rural and community mental health in India.
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