Table 1 Contributions and potential limitations of members of the partnership model for a global mental health program

Public Sector Institutions

• Guarantor of health as a right for all citizens.

• Able to scale- up and sustain promising programs.

• Develop mental health policy.

• May avoid taking risks with new models needed to innovate in healthcare delivery.

• May lack capital investment needed for high quality services.

Non-Governmental Healthcare Delivery Organizations

• Invest in innovative projects and take risks with new models.

• Clinical and community-based infrastructure allows for integration of mental health into general healthcare services.

• May lack specialized knowledge in vertical programs like mental healthcare.

• May harbor stigma against mental health.

Mental Health Organizations

• Specialized focus on cross-cultural adaptation of psychiatric concepts, research scales, and protocols.

• Training of health workers.

• Advocacy for mental healthcare services.

• May lack local contextual and cultural perspectives of the specific intervention site.

• May not have a robust general healthcare delivery infrastructure.

Healthcare Service Users

• Provide feedback and guidance for mental healthcare services.

• Advocate for quality services and human rights protections.

• Provide local accountability in settings of poor regulatory oversight of services.

• May have limited engagement due to societal stigma.

• May not have access to specialized, clinical knowledge.

• May lack agency to challenge such established institutions.

Bicultural Professionals

• Provide contextual and culturally-relevant framework for interventions.

• Develop clinical protocols in the local language that synthesize evidence and local cultural considerations.

• May not have local presence to provide ongoing training and supervision.

Academic Medical Centers

• Research infrastructure for implementation science, impact evaluation, and structured curriculum development.

• Training and mentorship.

• Support for principal investigators.

• Cross-disciplinary collaborations.

• Contextual expertise in healthcare delivery.

• May not have healthcare delivery systems to test interventions in community settings.

• May not have local expertise in community settings.