Selected projects in digital mental health, intervention development, and evaluation.
Research areas
Across contexts and questions
Digital interventions
Beyond engagement
What does meaningful use of a digital intervention look like? My work on parenting chatbots in Jamaica, Malaysia, and the Philippines examines early attrition and “effective access”: connecting use with the behavioural work an intervention asks people to do.
I study how strengths-based approaches can support positive mental health in prisons, using evidence synthesis and intervention evaluation. I currently lead the FLOURISH trial, evaluating a strengths-based mental health promotion programme in US prisons.
As Director of Research and Evaluation at Lay First Responders International, I help guide research on using technology to scale up training and support for first responders. This work informs a wider interest in how interventions operate within existing institutions and communities.
Can a brief animated story reduce addiction stigma? With colleagues at Stanford Medicine, I led a pilot randomised trial and contributed to a definitive trial involving 13,397 participants in the UK, USA, and South Africa.
The definitive trial was published in eClinicalMedicine.
How can researchers and government partners sustain prevention programmes through political and institutional change? My first-author preprint examines the implementation of a parenting chatbot through Mexico’s national family development system.
The manuscript is under review for a Prevention Science special issue.
Evidence synthesis with the Happier Lives Institute
How long do psychotherapy benefits last?
With colleagues at the Happier Lives Institute, I am completing a meta-analysis of psychotherapy’s effects on mental wellbeing in low- and middle-income countries.
We examine its average effect and how this varies by delivery format, provider expertise, and time spent in sessions. We also investigate how long the benefits last.