People with mental illness face enormous physical and social adversities on a daily basis. In developing countries, this issue becomes all the more prominent due to poor access to effective treatment. Because mental illness often begins to manifest earlier in life, efforts are ongoing across the globe to better integrate mental health with child and adolescent care. Dr. Vikram Patel, professor of international mental health and the Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, speaks to the importance of addressing mental illness in developing countries.