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The outcomes of mental-health research do not always reach those who could benefit.Credit: Anastasiia Sienotova/Getty

More than one billion people worldwide — around one person in seven — are estimated to live with a mental-health condition, according to the World Health Organization. Anxiety and depression alone affect close to 700 million, and each year around 700,000 individuals take their own lives, with more than half of those doing so before the age of 50.

You would think that the scale of the problem would merit a proportionate investment. But overall, such a response is lacking, meaning that many people with mental illness struggle to access the treatment, care or support that they need. Governments spend a median of only 2% of total health budgets on mental-health services — and much less in low- and middle-income countries. Severe shortages of trained mental-health professionals persist almost everywhere.

The picture for research funding is more mixed. After a period of sustained growth between 2014 and 2020, overall funding for mental-health research globally entered a steep decline, and by 2023 had fallen back to 2014 levels in real terms. That’s according to an analysis published last week by the International Alliance of Mental Health Research Funders in Washington DC (see go.nature.com/4wqefbt).

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Mental-health research is too often invisible — it is time to change that