Support The World's Smartest Network
×

Help the New York Academy of Sciences bring late-breaking scientific information about the COVID-19 pandemic to global audiences. Please make a tax-deductible gift today.

DONATE
This site uses cookies.
Learn more.

×

This website uses cookies. Some of the cookies we use are essential for parts of the website to operate while others offer you a better browsing experience. You give us your permission to use cookies, by continuing to use our website after you have received the cookie notification. To find out more about cookies on this website and how to change your cookie settings, see our Privacy policy and Terms of Use.

We encourage you to learn more about cookies on our site in our Privacy policy and Terms of Use.

Innovation Challenge:

Novel Ways to Tackle Diagnosis and Treatment Gaps in Global Mental Health

This Challenge is

CLOSED

Mental health disorders surpass both cardiovascular disease and cancer in incidence, yet more than 75 percent of individuals suffering serious mental health challenges in developing countries receive no treatment. Stigma and lack of awareness prevent people from seeking treatment, and few skilled care providers exist for those that do. Life in high-conflict, post-conflict, or impoverished settings can exacerbate mental illness, further marginalizing those in need of help.

Scientists Without Borders partnered with Johnson & Johnson to address this area of high unmet need through a $10,000 open-innovation, incentive-based Challenge to boost awareness and utilization of existing mental health services for depression and anxiety in the developing world. Ideas were required to be culturally appropriate and feasible to implement in low-resource settings.

Our independent expert panel of judges selected “MHealth for Mental Health” from Alejandra Leyton, a Bolivian Health Economist pursuing an MPH at Tulane University, and Veena Katikineni, a second year medical student at the University of Maryland Baltimore as the winning solution!

Want to be notified when our next challenge is announced?

Subscribe >

MENTAL HEALTH GAP ACTION PROGRAMME (mhGAP), " Special Focus on the draft Global Mental Health Action Plan" http://www.who.int/mental_health/mhgap/mhGAP_forum_2012.pdf, World Health Organization. (WHO 2012)

Nature, Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health, (Macmillan Publishers, 2011). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7354/abs/475027a.html

MD, PhD, and Arthur Kleinman, MD Anne E. Beker, "An Agenga for Closing Resourse Gaps in Global Mental Health: Innovation, Capacity Building, and partnerships," Harvard Review Psychiatry, no. 20 (2012): 3-5.

The Grand Challenges in Mental Health http://grandchallengesgmh.nimh.nih.gov/Grand%20Challenges%20in%20Global%20Mental%20Health.pdf.

The Global Burden of Disease: 2004 Update. World Health Organization.  (WHO 2008)

Vikram Patel, "Global Mental Health: From Science to Action," Harvard Review Psychiatry (2012 President and Fellows of Harvard College), July 2011.

Vikram Patel, “Why Adolescent Depression is a Global Health Priority and What We Should Do About It" Adolescent Health 2012.

Worldwide Use of Mental Health Services for Anxiety, Mood, and Substance Disorders: Results from 17 Countries in the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) Surveys Wang et al, Lancet 2007

Want to be notified when our next challenge is announced?

Subscribe >