The debate about mental health in India is becoming more open. The next step is to improve treatment accessibility.

• In India, the importance of mental health is becoming more widely recognised.
  
• Meanwhile, the country's mental health system is woefully underfunded.
• In terms of good views toward obtaining mental health care, India ranks first in the world.

It's difficult to keep track of advancement in any qualitative area. When working with a complicated area like mental health, the level of complexity rises dramatically. Two recent independent reports, on the other hand, point to reasons for optimism, as well as a better grasp of the problem.

Mental illness is the biggest cause of disability worldwide, making it one of our most pressing collective concerns. The magnitude of the problem in India, a culturally rich and multifaceted country, can be intimidating. In this battle, a poorly understaffed sector serves the world's second-most populated nation, with just 0.75 psychiatrists per 100,000 patients, all while the WHO estimates that mental health disorders would cost the global economy $1.03 trillion between 2012 and 2030. As a result, every intervention is a priority; each move may appear to be a bit late, but we cannot afford to let this obstruct our efforts.

LiveLoveLaugh has promoted a deeper and more open national discourse about mental health in India since its inception six years ago. How India Perceives Mental Health is a follow-up study to a prior survey published in 2018. It aims to assess mental health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours in India.

Its findings provide considerable reason for optimism as well as a foundation for action. For example, in a shift in attitudes toward mental health interventions, 92 percent of those polled indicated they would support someone getting treatment for mental illness, up from 54 percent in 2018.

The poll also indicated a significant shift in public image of people with mental illness, with 65 percent believing that such people can maintain employment and live stable, healthy lives, up from 32 percent in 2018. Another 68 percent believed that persons with mental illnesses may develop meaningful relationships with friends, family, and companions, which is a welcome improvement in a country where misinformation abounds in the mental health sector.

However, the study also identified a number of roadblocks to advancement. There are still significant gaps in our knowledge of schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and childhood illnesses. Mental health solutions are still poorly understood and accessible. Furthermore, despite rising awareness, the doublethink and difference in understanding across groups remains significant, according to common ideas such as a supernatural basis for mental illness.

This duality is displayed on a larger scale in the Wellcome Global Monitor: Mental Health, the world's largest assessment of how people think about and manage with anxiety and depression. The study surveyed over 119,000 people in 113 countries on their perceptions of science's role in developing innovative solutions.

Its findings demonstrate to an universal knowledge of mental health's significance in well-being, with 92 percent of people in all nations saying mental health is as important as or more important than physical health.

The study also indicates another important detail: people believe science is more relevant to describing how the human body functions (46 percent say "a lot") than how feelings and emotions work (27 percent say "a lot"), which could be a roadblock to development. In keeping with this viewpoint, the public believes that science can treat infectious diseases and cancer (53 percent and 49 percent, respectively), but that it may be less helpful in treating anxiety and depression (31 percent).

In terms of India, the Wellcome study discovered that public attitudes about mental health in India are good. In fact, the India sample had one of the most open attitudes toward mental health, with 42 percent saying they would feel very comfortable talking to someone in their community about anxiety and depression, more than double the global average of 19 percent. The Indian part of the study mirrored the global view of science's role in mental health, emphasising that science may explain mental disease but not necessarily treat it.

Both findings imply that India is becoming more aware of the realities and implications of mental illness, and that it is responding with openness and acceptance, highlighting the need of education and availability. This mentality, however, requires systemic backing.

In science, for example, we must grow not only in terms of discovering new information, but also in terms of disseminating this knowledge to a wide range of audiences. Furthermore, policymakers, service providers, and educators must all work together to build effective systems to meet the country's grossly underserved mental health needs. Individual differences must be taken into consideration in these frameworks; from the cellular to the societal level, people require personalization and autonomy to manage their mental health.

The solution is complicated, and any large-scale intervention will be enormous, but we must stay strong and do what we can to go forward, one step at a time. Optimism is a fantastic place to start.