BehindClosedDoors: Recognizing the Silent Struggles of Mental Health

Despite increasing awareness, mental health remains stigmatized, leading to discrimination, misunderstanding, and inadequate support. One of the greatest challenges in recent years has been gaining widespread recognition of mental health as a critical health issue. This global health crisis affects people of all ages, backgrounds, and socioeconomic statuses but often goes undiagnosed and untreated in many parts of the world. This has left many people suffering in silence, battling invisible wounds that have a significant impact on their lives.

The Journey of Mental Health Data Prize Africa #DrivingInnovation

Since the launch of the Mental Health Data Prize Africa (MHDPA) in December 2023, the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) has achieved great strides toward its mission of better understanding Africa's mental health challenges and developing scalable solutions. The first phase of the initiative attracted a wide range of participants, including innovators, scholars, policymakers, and people with lived experiences. Over 1,300 participants from across Africa took part in a five-month virtual capacity-building program, gaining valuable skills in areas such as data science, evidence-based policy-making, artificial intelligence (AI), and causal inference

Applications open for the Mental Health Data Prize - Africa 2024

2024—The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), in partnership with Wellcome, has today begun receiving applications for the Mental Health Data Prize—Africa 2024. This prize seeks to bridge critical gaps in the understanding of anxiety, depression, and psychosis across Africa. The first-of-its-kind prize is open to innovators, researchers, and startups competing for up to ten awards, each valued at £200,000 that comes with a year of funding. It will see multidisciplinary teams led by Africans working together to generate scalable innovations and data-driven insights to enhance the continent’s understanding of anxiety, depression, and psychosis.

How can we engage people with lived experiences experts to enhance research and mental health care and services in Africa?

NAIROBI APRIL,25 2024

Access to mental health services remains a significant challenge for over 116 million people across Africa. This is due to, among other challenges, cultural and spiritual beliefs, inadequate human resources and infrastructure, financing constraints, legal barriers as well as societal misconceptions.

New initiative to boost mental health research in Africa

The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in partnership with Wellcome is set to launch a new initiative in 2024 that aims to address existing gaps in mental health research in Africa.

Mental Health Data Prize Africa

APHRC in partnership with Wellcome has launched the Mental Health Data Prize Africa, a project that aims the development and implementation of innovative solutions for mental health research and evidence generations in Africa. The goal of the prize is to produce tangible and scalable solutions that support mental health research practice and/ or to generate data driven insight/evidence tailored to the needs and priorities of the African mental health communities i.e., the project aims to understand what works in prevention, treatment and management of anxiety, depression and psychosis and to drive a transformative change in ways that are prioritized by people experiencing these problems in the African context.