Utilizing Lay Counselors to assist in closing the mental health treatment gap in middle and low income countries: What works

This informative interactive presentation will discuss the current contribution of mental health disorders to the global burden of disease. It will be based on a paper published in the August 2021 issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization and authored by an international team of University and Hospital-based researchers headed by the author, Suzanne Connolly. The authors explored RCTs in low and middle-income countries where the mental health interventions were facilitated by professionally trained lay counsellors with no previous mental health training.