The Dickey Center’s Global Mental Health Initiative (GMHI) brought together faculty, researchers, and institutional leaders for a timely and substantive conversation on how digital innovation can address the growing mental health crisis facing healthcare workers worldwide.
The panel — part of GMHI’s “Empowering Health Workers for a Healthier Future” initiative — explored the urgent need to equip both future and current healthcare professionals with better tools to manage burnout, stress, and trauma in the context of global health crises. Moderated by Thomas Thesen, the discussion featured Lisa Marsch, Danny Forger, Zul Merali, and Michael Heinz, whose collective expertise brought real depth to a challenge that is as practical as it is urgent.
Together, they examined how mobile sensing, generative AI, and culturally responsive digital interventions can serve as workforce multipliers — helping to close the global mental health treatment gap even in resource-limited settings. Central to the conversation was the research partnership between Dartmouth and the Brain & Mind Institute at Aga Khan University in Nairobi, a collaboration that exemplifies the kind of international, evidence-based work the Dickey Center is proud to support.
We were gratified by the engagement this conversation generated. The recording of the panel discussion can be found here.
