About EMPOWER

The Challenge EMPOWER strives to address

The global mental health crisis continues to escalate, bearing significant consequences for those with mental illnesses, their loved ones, and society. Those who shoulder a disproportionately large burden of suffering include children and adolescents, low-income individuals, and historically marginalized groups—these individuals face tangible hurdles to accessing quality health care.

Despite the abundance of evidence showing that psychosocial interventions can prevent and treat a wide range of mental health problems, there is virtually 0% coverage globally.

The current efforts to build the mental health workforce and address the escalating need rely on in-person training and expert supervision. These methods are resource intensive and impossible to scale. We need a radically different approach to address this crisis, which emphasizes science, scalability, and equity.

The Opportunity

We’re positioned to have a massive impact on the delivery of mental health services globally because of several key enabling trends:

Mental health is recognized as an urgent area of action in most countries & UN Sustainable Development Goals

The opportunity - non specialist providers

Non-specialist providers can deliver brief evidence-based interventions with a high degree of fidelity

The opportunity - effective digital training

Digital training, supervision and delivery of brief psychological treatments is effective, and access to technology is increasing globally

Peer-to-peer models for supervision are effective for quality assurance

The EMPOWER Solution

EMPOWER presents a digital solution designed for anyone to learn, master, and deliver quality-assured psychosocial interventions. The team's focus is on capacity building across different organizations such as health systems, schools, amongst others, to prevent and manage mental health problems, across the life course, on a global scale. EMPOWER achieves this by deploying cutting-edge digital training, supervision, and quality assurance tools, empowering care providers to effectively learn, master, and deliver evidence-based psychosocial interventions.

Leveraging Data for Impact

At the core of the initiative is a commitment to harness emerging data. The team utilizes this data to evaluate the impact of scaling up mental health services and to cultivate a deeper understanding of the components that make psychological interventions effective. EMPOWER is not just revolutionizing mental health care; but is also advancing the knowledge and strategies needed to create lasting, positive change in mental well-being across diverse populations.

Meet the EMPOWER Team

Vikram Patel

vikram_patel@hms.harvard.edu

Mental Health for All Lab Co-Director

Paul Farmer Professor and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Professor in the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Co-founder and Member of Managing Committee, Sangath, Goa, India

Vikram Patel is the Paul Farmer Professor and Chair of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Blavatnik Institute's Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School . He co-leads the GlobalMentalHealth@Harvard initiative . His...

John Naslund

Mental Health for All Lab Co-Director

Senior Research Scientist in Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

John A. Naslund, PhD, is an Instructor in Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Naslund holds expertise in mental health epidemiology, implementation science, social disparities research, and digital mental health. His...

Laura Bond

Senior Program Manager, EMPOWER

Laura Bond, PhD, MA, is a Senior Program Manager of EMPOWER at the Mental Health for All Lab. Laura's research focuses broadly on implementation science and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) programming in underserved communities. Laura is...

Keshini Saggar

Research Assistant, EMPOWER

Keshini Saggar is a graduate of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health's Master of Public Health program, specializing in Health and Social Behavior. Hailing from India, Keshini has a diverse background as a trained Dental Surgeon complemented by...

Isaac Lara

Research Assistant, EMPOWER

Isaac Lara (he/him) is a well-being advocate, community builder, researcher, and proud father to a seven-year-old Yorkie. He is passionate about enhancing the mental well-being of our global community through community-based models of care and fostering a...

Emma Hill

Research Assistant, EMPOWER

Emma Hill is a recent graduate of Simmons University, having received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a focus on child development and childhood psychopathology. She is particularly interested in the impact of early childhood experiences on later...

Caitlyn Vergara

Research Assistant, EMPOWER

Caitlyn Vergara is an advocate for public safety and mental health. A graduate of UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, she completed a capstone project with Google[x] on public perception of predictive policing models in California. As a research fellow...

Carina Akemi Nakamura

Research Fellow

Carina holds a BSc and an MSc in Pharmacy from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, and a PhD from the Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool, UK. Carina was previously a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of...