title: Language, culture, and task shifting--an emerging challenge for global mental health.
abstract: Language is at the heart of mental health care. Many high-income countries have sophisticated interpreter services, but in low- and middle-income countries there are not sufficient professional services, let alone interpreter services, and task shifting is used. In this article, we discuss this neglected issue in the context of low- and middle-income countries, where task shifting has been suggested as a solution to the problem of scarce mental health resources. The large diversity of languages in low- and middle-income countries, exacerbated by wide-scale migration, has implications for the scale-up of services. We suggest that it would be useful for those who are working innovatively to develop locally delivered mental health programmes in low- and middle-income countries to explore and report on issues of language and how these have been addressed. We need to know more about local challenges, but also about local solutions which seem to work, and for this we need more information from the field than is currently available.
authors.affiliation: Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health, Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa; Lswartz@sun.ac.za.
authors.forename: Leslie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Swartz
authors.affiliation: Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health, Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
authors.forename: Sanja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kilian
authors.affiliation: Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health, Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
authors.forename: Justus
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Twesigye
authors.affiliation: Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health, Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
authors.forename: Dzifa
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Attah
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
authors.forename: Bonginkosi
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chiliza
mesh_terms: D003469:Culture; D003906:Developing Countries; D014943:Global Health; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000600:supply & distribution; D014175:Translating
keywords: interpreter services; language; low income; mental health; task shifting