Working to meet the global need for mental health education

Digital Medic at the Stanford Center for Health Education will roll out new materials later this year that address an aspect of human experience too often cloaked by stigma and fear: mental health. About one person in every eight worldwide lives with a mental health disorder, and roughly half the global population will experience a mental health condition before the age of 75. 

Two Digital Medic initiatives, currently in progress, endeavor to support mental health needs stretching from Uganda to the San Francisco Peninsula. These initiatives, like all of Digital Medic’s content, focus on improving overall health and health outcomes through education. With mental health growing into a global crisis over the past decade, it has become clear that addressing mental health is crucial to attaining general health.

Our first initiative aims to increase knowledge about mental health among community health workers (CHWs) in sub-Saharan Africa, in collaboration with organizations based in the region. CHWs are frontline health workers, trusted members of their communities who provide health information, participate in health promotion campaigns, treat illness, and connect their neighbors with medical providers. 

The CHW training — to be co-created with Nama Wellness Community Centre (Uganda) and One to One Africa (South Africa), and funded through grants from Crown Family Philanthropies and the ELMA Foundation — will focus on recognition, misconceptions, and support for mental health conditions. In Africa, there are only two mental health professionals for every 100,000 people, according to a 2022 estimate by the World Health Organization, so equipping community health workers with more knowledge about mental health can help to address a profound need.

The second initiative responds to a need in the Bay Area. In collaboration with the Stanford Division of Adolescent Medicine REACH Lab and San Mateo County Office of Education, we are designing an online, video-based course to help school counselors, teachers, and others effectively communicate with adolescents about substance use. The goal is to equip school staff with the knowledge and communication tools to guide students to make safe and healthy choices during this critical stage of development. Materials will be made freely available to San Mateo schools and the public on YouTube. The project is led by Dr. Charles Prober, founding executive director of the Stanford Center for Health Education and its Digital Medic unit, and Dr. Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and director of the REACH lab. It is funded as a 2025 Community Engagement Impact Project through the Office of Community Engagement at Stanford.

“Digital Medic is committed to expanding access to health education, a critical first step towards improved health,” said Dr. Prober. “We collaborate with local communities around the world, because local organizations know the people in their communities and their specific needs and challenges. When we co-design with them, keeping in mind that the product should be easily scalable, we find the open-source content is commonly accessed far beyond the initial audience.”

Understanding the global mental health challenge

The content from these two new projects will be added to Digital Medic’s existing resources on mental health. All are designed to provide clear, practical information about problems that can have multiple causes, and that affect people across political borders, cultures, and socioeconomic status.

While other forms of disease often present later in life, mental health conditions — among them, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and schizophrenia — often emerge during adolescence. Poverty, displacement, pollution, climate change, and war create population-level risk and heighten the incidence of mental health problems, but so can loneliness and social media use: the children of the affluent, in wealthy countries, are not immune. 

The economic impact of poor mental health is substantial. The World Health Organization estimates that depression and anxiety cost the world $1 trillion in lost productivity each year. And there is increasing recognition that mental health is closely intertwined with overall health; for instance, depression increases the risk for chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, and the reverse is true as well.

The broad prevalence and impact of mental health conditions point to an increasing need for education and training that is evidence-based and accessible, and that breaks down fear and stigma around the topic. Because mental health is complex and is affected by factors at many levels — the CDC lists individual, family, community, and society — there are many possible avenues for events or exposures that increase a person’s risk. More encouragingly, factors that are protective and promote resilience can also occur or be fostered at many levels, from individual relationships to educational settings, community traditions, and state and government policies. 

“Everyone, no matter their role, can be part of the solution by learning to recognize signs of mental health struggles in themselves and in others,” said Dr. Prober. “Increased attention is needed at times of great sensitivity and growth, such as adolescence and new parenthood. People in these stages need extra support from their circles of support and from our systems of care.” 

A library of open-access digital resources supporting mental health

Digital Medic’s new materials will expand access to engaging education that has the power to change behaviors, improve health, and ultimately save lives. They will build upon an existing library of digital resources on mental health:

• Our YouTube series Mental Health | What to Know provides information from Stanford experts on the most-searched health conditions, in English and Spanish. Topics include addiction, substance use, depression, anxiety, self-harm, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and anorexia and other eating disorders.

• Self-care for Community Health Workers, offered in English, Spanish, French, Sepedi, and Xhosa, acknowledges the occupational stresses of community health workers and demonstrates healthy coping mechanisms. While designed as part of a CHW training module, it is broadly applicable to caregivers and health providers. 

• Mental Health Support for New Mothers, offered in English, Dyula, Mandarin, Sepedi, Setswana, Swati, Xhosa, and Zulu, aims to destigmatize maternal distress and help community health workers support struggling mothers. 

• Coping with Stress and Caring for Mental Health was designed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It depicts people in various roles experiencing stress in different ways and suggests healthy strategies for coping.

Investing in mental health: a decision with enduring dividends

Digital Medic strives to improve the health of communities globally, focusing on high-need health issues that have the greatest impact on morbidity, mortality, and quality of life. Mental health falls into that category. In crafting resources to support individuals, communities, and organizations responding to the global mental health crisis, we know that educating frontline providers and caregivers is critical. Indeed, it is an act threaded with hope: early intervention can make all the difference.

If you have feedback about our educational materials or would like to support our efforts, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach us at digitalmedic@stanford.edu.

Digital Medic works to expand access to health information for health workers and community members worldwide. Join our email list to learn about new health education resources, breakthroughs in research, and opportunities to collaborate.