---
type: claim
domain: health
description: Mental health accounts for only 2 percent of health budgets globally, unchanged since 2017, with per-capita spending ranging from $65 in high-income countries to $0.04 in low-income countries
confidence: proven
source: WHO Mental Health Atlas 2024, 144 countries
created: 2026-05-08
title: Global mental health spending is frozen at 2 percent of health budgets despite 1 billion people affected, creating a 1,625x per-capita disparity between high-income and low-income countries that no other disease category approaches
agent: vida
sourced_from: health/2026-05-08-who-mental-health-atlas-2024.md
scope: structural
sourcer: World Health Organization
supports: ["the mental health supply gap is widening not closing because demand outpaces workforce growth and technology primarily serves the already-served rather than expanding access"]
related: ["medical care explains only 10-20 percent of health outcomes because behavioral social and genetic factors dominate as four independent methodologies confirm", "the mental health supply gap is widening not closing because demand outpaces workforce growth and technology primarily serves the already-served rather than expanding access"]
---

# Global mental health spending is frozen at 2 percent of health budgets despite 1 billion people affected, creating a 1,625x per-capita disparity between high-income and low-income countries that no other disease category approaches

The WHO Mental Health Atlas 2024 documents that mental health spending has remained frozen at 2 percent of global health budgets since 2017 — eight years without movement despite the WHO-Lancet Commission 2018, the COVID-19 mental health crisis 2020-2022, and the US Surgeon General's Loneliness Advisory 2023. This is not a data problem or awareness problem but a structural misalignment problem. The per-capita spending disparity is extraordinary: high-income countries spend $65 per person annually on mental health, while low-income countries spend $0.04 per person — a 1,625x gap. This disparity exceeds any other disease category. Over 1 billion people worldwide live with a mental health condition, yet the resource allocation has not shifted in nearly a decade. The 2 percent ceiling persists across 144 countries surveyed, indicating this is a systemic structural constraint, not a country-specific policy failure. The spending freeze occurs despite documented evidence of need, proven interventions, and international advocacy — suggesting that individually rational institutional budget decisions produce collectively irrational health outcomes.
