Duke University  ·  Directed by Dr. Eve Puffer

Global Family Mental Health Lab

Reaching families where they are, strengthening relationships to improve mental health

Our team develops and evaluates family-based mental health interventions in low-resource settings worldwide. We work with the family system as a whole, and much of our work focuses on programs that lay providers and peers can deliver in the places families already spend their time. This work is also reciprocal. Approaches built in one setting are adapted for another, so that global and United States practice each inform the other.

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The Global Family Mental Health Lab develops programs that are delivered in the places families already spend their time, including homes, congregations, schools, and community groups, so that taking part does not depend on reaching a clinic. Programs are developed and adapted together with communities, using community-based participatory methods and formative mixed-methods research, so that each intervention is grounded both in evidence and in the culture and setting where it is delivered. 

Our work spans prevention and treatment, and we design for families with varying levels of need, from programs offered to a whole community to more focused support for families experiencing acute distress. Sessions are delivered by lay providers and peers, so that support can continue in the communities where it was developed.

The lab also invests in the people and institutions who deliver that care, training community health promoters and peer counselors, and supporting research leadership among early-career investigators in the countries where the research takes place.

Community-Based Family Interventions Develop and evaluate programs delivered in homes, congregations, schools, and community groups by lay providers and peers. Adolescent Well-Being Address young people’s emotional well-being and their relationships, together with the family and health system contexts that shape how they cope. Pediatric Psychology Understand how chronic childhood illness shapes development and family life, and build psychosocial support for young people and their caregivers. Capacity Strengthening Support research leadership in the settings where the lab works, and train community health workers, lay providers, and peer counselors.