“Mental health research in Canada cannot keep pace with the growing need for prevention, diagnostics, and treatments. The percentage of Canadians expressing the need for mental health care in a given year continues to increase, while overall funding for mental health research in Canada remains low,” say the organizations that sponsor the Royal-Mach-Gaensslen Prize: the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research at The Royal and the Mach-Gaensslen Foundation of Canada.
In a commentary published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 14 November 2022, the authors call for governments to match philanthropic donations to mental health research. They also recommend forming a national organization for philanthropy for mental health research. They refer to statistics on mental health research funding and the prevalence of mental health problems in Canada to show the gap between the need and the current level of funding.
“We call on public and not-for-profit funders of health research to increase flexible funding for innovative mental health research and to hold a summit on addressing the challenge of funding for mental health research,” they conclude.
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