# Promoting Mental Health of Teachers and Caregivers using a Personalized mHealth Toolkit in Uganda

> **NIH NIH R21** · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE · 2024 · $163,181

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Anxiety and depression in caregivers of children are the most prevalent mental health problems in populations
in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries and are a major public health challenge for which broad management
strategies currently do not exist. Caregiver mental health research in SSA has primarily focused on parents
and not teachers despite high prevalence of anxiety/depression reported in teachers. In Uganda (the location
of our proposed study), an estimated 28% of parents have mental health problems, and 25% of teachers have
anxiety/depression. Intervention to address caregivers’ and teachers’ mental health needs remains limited, in
part due to lack of resources and cost-effective population strategies. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop
mental health interventions that: 1) improve both teachers and parents stress management and reduce
prevalence of mental health problems; and 2) apply low-cost population strategies to improve accessibility of
the interventions in the broader school system. This proposal seeks to test the feasibility (R21 phase) and
effectiveness (R33 phase) of a new mHealth-App intervention, the mHealth Toolkit for Wellness & Empowering
Lives of School Community (mWEL) in Uganda. mWEL-App is an interactive preventive intervention tool for
teachers and parents as a self-help support modality. mWEL integrates three key mental health service
functions: i) comprehensive screen to assess mental health (anxiety, depression), stress, and related
contextual risks; ii) a tailored strength and weakness profile/report with recommendations to promote self-
awareness and mental health knowledge; and iii) tailored evidence-based strategies and additional support
and clinical resources to improve skills in stress management, emotion regulation, and maintain mental
wellness. To promote accessibility and to have broader population reach, mWEL will be embedded in the
education system and we will develop a sustainable approach to its implementation suited to local capacity and
policy. Specifically, we will apply a community and peer-empowered task-shifting approach to develop a
workforce for implementation. The Specific Aims are: (1) to build research and service capacity for digital and
public health approaches to improve caregivers’ mental health in schools; (2) to test and enhance usability of
the mWEL-T and P and to test feasibility and efficacy of both Toolkits in primary schools; (3) to test the
effectiveness of the optimized versions of mWEL using a cluster-randomized control trial (cRCT); and (4) to
identify big data analytic strategies for improving Digital-Toolkit decision support and precision mental health
care.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10918309
- **Project number:** 5R21MH131041-02
- **Recipient organization:** NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Keng-Yen Huang
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $163,181
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-01 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10918309

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10918309, Promoting Mental Health of Teachers and Caregivers using a Personalized mHealth Toolkit in Uganda (5R21MH131041-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10918309. Licensed CC0.

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