Jennifer Mootz

Dr. Mootz leads the Innovation in Global Mental Health (iGMH) Lab. The iGMH Lab applies a Community-Based Participatory Research approach to improve access to and relevance of mental health care in low-resource settings globally and locally. These efforts focus on three key areas:

1. Developing and testing digital tools that support scalability and accessibility of community-based delivery of mental health care;
2. Addressing social determinants of health, such as exposure to violence, in mental health care;
3. Applying implementation science to enhance contextual relevance of mental health care and facilitate research to practice.

Through the VITAL initiative (Violence Prevention and Innovation for Treatment and Advocacy in Lives of Women), for instance, the iGMH team is testing the feasibility of a couple-based approach to reducing intimate partner violence among couples in Mozambique. Another central program is Project PALM (Portable Adolescent/Young Adult Liaison to Mental Health) that is developing and testing digital tools, including chatbots, to support mental well-being among youth.