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Developing the West African Digital Mental Health Alliance (WADMA)

Nature Medicine volume 29, pages 2680–2681 (2023)Cite this article

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In the past decade, West Africa has had an increase in digital health technologies, which leverage its robust mobile cellular infrastructure to deliver care. There is increasing attention to utilizing mobile health (mHealth) for awareness, screening, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses1. The landscape of mHealth in mental health is characterized by the use of digital innovations such as SMS messaging, smartphone applications and web-based resources to expand access to mental health care2. Digital mental health tools, which are available through widely accessible technological platforms, hold promise for narrowing the global mental health care gap2,3.

There is a shortage of trained mental health professionals and bricks-and-mortar mental health facilities in Africa. Recent digital mental health innovations developed and leveraged elsewhere show promise for addressing patient-, system- and policy-level challenges4. Training opportunities that engage regional interdisciplinary stakeholders can build capacity for local digital mental health research and development.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, London, UK

    Lola Kola

  2. University of Washington School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Seattle, WA, USA

    Lola Kola, Anna Larsen, Alexa Beaulieu, Kevin Hallgren, Arya Kadakia & Dror Ben-Zeev

  3. University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Lola Kola

  4. Department of Psychiatry, University of Ghana Medical School, Accra, Ghana

    Seth Asafo, Dzifa Abra Attah, Jonathan Kuma Gavi, Sammy Ohene & Angela Ofori-Atta

  5. Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Accra, Ghana

    Kwadwo Obeng

  6. The Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Jaime Snyder

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  1. Lola Kola
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  2. Anna Larsen
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  13. Dror Ben-Zeev
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lola Kola.

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Competing interests

D.B.-Z. has financial interests in Merlin LLC, FOCUS Technology and CORE technology and an intervention content licensing agreement with Pear Therapeutics, and has provided consultation services to Trusst Health, K Health, Boehringer Ingelheim, eQuility, Deep Valley Labs and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals.

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Kola, L., Larsen, A., Asafo, S. et al. Developing the West African Digital Mental Health Alliance (WADMA). Nat Med 29, 2680–2681 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02548-5

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