Empowerindia

In India, the mental health infrastructure is grossly inadequate with 0.75 psychiatrists per 100,000 population
More than 75% of people in low- and middle-income countries receive no treatment; in India, the treatment gap for depression is 85.2%
Task sharing strategies help reduce the treatment gap through the delivery of mental health interventions by non-specialist providers (NSPs)
Healthy Activity Program (HAP) is a behavioural activation-based psychological intervention for depression. It is a brief, low-intensity, six-to-eight session treatment which has been found to be effective and acceptable when delivered by NSPs
In order to make this psychological treatment accessible and available in remote rural communities, hundreds of NSPs will have to be trained, which can be achieved by using digital tools
The EMPOWER project aims to leverage digital tools to scale up evidence based psychosocial intervention for adult and perinatal depression by training NSPs using an innovative task-sharing strategy.

To train 1000 Acredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) on Healthy Activity Program (HAP); evidence based psychosocial intervention for adult depression.
To train 500 ASHAs on Thinking Healthy Program Peer-delivered (THPP); an evidence based psychosocial intervention for perinatal depression.
To deliver 19800 counselling sessions based on HAP to 3300 clients screened positive for depression using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9).
To deliver 6000 counselling sessions based on THPP to 600 clients screened positive for perinatal depression using

EMPOWER: Building India's Mental Health Workforce