2024 Articles

Leveraging a Digitized Mental Wellness (DIGImw) Program to Provide Mental Health Care for Internally Displaced People

Mootz, Jennifer J.; Chantre, Catherine; Sikkema, Kathleen; Greene, M. Claire; Lovero, Kathryn L.; Gouveia, Lidia; Santos, Palmira; Suleman, Antonio; Comé, Andrea Simone; Feliciano, Paulino; Uribe-Restrepo, José Miguel; Sweetland, Annika C.; Shelton, Rachel C.; Kane, Jeremy; Mello, Milena; Fumo, Wilza; Cadena-Camargo, Yazmin; Weissman, Myrna M.

A local insurgency has displaced many people in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado. The authors’ global team (comprising members from Brazil, Mozambique, South Africa, and the United States) has been scaling up mental health services across the neighboring province of Nampula, Mozambique, now host to >200,000 displaced people. The authors describe how mental health services can be expanded by leveraging digital technology and task-shifting (i.e., having nonspecialists deliver mental health care) to address the mental health needs of displaced people. These methods can serve as a model for other researchers and clinicians aiming to address mental health needs arising from humanitarian disasters in low-resource settings.