Mental Health Care Strategies has exacerbated mental health care challenges for individuals who already face increased suicidal behaviours, isolation, job insecurity, poverty, intimate partner violence and challenges accessing care. This is especially true for adolescents and young adults, people from historically marginalised racial and ethnic groups and those in contact with child welfare or juvenile justice systems.

As a result, many communities are seeking innovative ways to strengthen their mental health care strategies. Whether it is through case management, support groups or complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), community members are finding innovative ways to help themselves and each other.

Mental health services must be integrated into primary healthcare (PHC) settings to better manage mental illness as a chronic condition. This enables individuals to access the right support at the right time, in the right place and for the right duration, while also connecting them with other supports such as housing and employment.

Mind Matters: Proactive Mental Health Care Strategies for a Balanced Life

The purpose of this article is to present a systematic Evidence Map, based on the methodological framework of evidence synthesis, which shows nine different strategies that could be implemented to strengthen mental health care at PHC level. The EM depicts the nine identified strategies and their relation with outcomes that have been measured at patient, hospital and societal level.

The EM is currently being used to engage clinicians, researchers, policy/decision makers and mental health stakeholders from across the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This is enabling a wider understanding of how to translate the EM to a more tangible and actionable form for use within communities to improve their mental health care.