Project Overview
MENTBEST is an action-focused research project on mental health funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and led by the European Alliance Against Depression. Full information is available on www.mentbest.com.
Project Aims
MENTBEST aims to enable vulnerable individuals in society, mental health practitioners, and communities across Europe to prevent and mitigate mental health challenges (clinical and non-clinical) related to the negative impact of rapid changes that our society faces, such as economic crisis, war and conflict, climate change, migration, digitalisation, epidemics, pandemics, ageing and demographic change.
To address these mental health challenges, MENTBEST builds on the widely deployed and scientifically proven community-based 4-level intervention programme of the European Alliance Against Depression.
This intervention programme tackles clinical depression and suicide and will be expanded in the MENTBEST project to include sub-diagnostic mental health problems such as depressive symptoms and mental distress.
Thus, the objectives of MENTBEST are to:
- prevent suicide
- reduce the burden of depression
- improve wellbeing
The expanded intervention programme will consist of a range of individual and community level activities and focus on the general population as well as five vulnerable groups:
- Migrants/refugees
- Older people
- Younger people
- Long-term unemployed
- Those with mental disorders
During the MENTBEST project, the programme will be implemented and tested in five different countries (Ireland, Estonia, Albania, Spain and Greece).
Team Members Involved
Professor Ella Arensman, Dr Ana Contreras Navarro, Aileen Callanan and Almas Khan