Co-Producing a Community-based Mental Health Improvement Programme in Guyana through Inter-disciplinary Participatory Action Research

Over one billion people globally struggle with issues related to mental health, including depression, substance abuse and self-harm. Lack of research in implementation and policy change is further impeded by stigma, capacity shortages, and fragmented service delivery. With three case studies in Guyana, the aim of this project is to research the effectiveness of a mental health capacity-building and intervention programme appropriate for low resource settings that combines insights from the social, information technology and environmental sciences. The researchers objective is to identify, record and share successful local practices that have evolved to cope with challenging cultural, organisational and environmental conditions, and devise mechanisms to promote these through policy change.