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outright resistance) towards the introduction of digital technologies within health systems. At the same time, the use of online mental health support is growing exponentially. The market for mental health apps is exploding, driven by the increasing demand for flexible healthcare solutions and huge investments by private sector companies. For young people, who tend to be more at ease with such technologies, the online space offers an abundance of options. All kinds of (often dubious) online support is offered through social media. According to international research reports, thousands of apps are downloaded daily in app stores, mostly by people seeking support for psychosocial wellbeing and stress management. Unfortunately,
only a small proportion of these publicly available mobile apps have published evidence of effectiveness.
To try to address this gap, UNICEF has been engaging in a series of partnerships with governments, tech developers, practitioners, young users, academia and private sector companies to help develop safe, effective innovative technologies that can lead to better health and education outcomes for children, adolescents, youth and their caregivers. One example is the development of the uSupport e-MH platform (uSupport). UNICEF’s investment in uSupport aims to develop a confidential, secure, and trusted platform that reaches and provides support to youth where they are: online. Designed to help increase mental health literacy and reduce the significant gap in access to
usability tailored to diverse needs, ethical alignment with users’ interests and transparency, liability and accreditation standards to safeguard accountability. Interconnecting global knowledge
health workers persist, especially in low- and middle-income countries. While digital mental health solutions can help solve some of these issues, introducing them within national health systems is complex. In the rapidly evolving technology and AI landscape – and while facing a range of competing priorities – it is difficult for governments to navigate the integration of innovative digital mental health solutions within their national health and development strategies and systems. Furthermore, in many policy and practitioners’ circles, there is insufficient understanding of digital health, limited capacity for addressing it, and, sometimes, a lack of political will (or even
and local implementation is also required to develop and roll out safe and effective e-MH solutions at scale.
Challenges of digital solutions
The global response to the mental health crisis remains insufficient. While many countries have bolstered their mental health policies and programmes, median spending on mental health is just 2 per cent of total health budgets. Extreme shortages of mental
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