r.i.c.e.

Measurement of population mental health is uncommon in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In the face of high mortality rates and widespread infectious disease in LMICs, it is not unreasonable for governments and researchers to prioritize measuring physical health. The high cost of face-to-face data collection is another reason that mental health often goes unmeasured.

However, as data becomes increasingly less costly to collect, there are emerging opportunities to measure, understand, and address poor mental health in LMICs. In particular, the project of measuring population mental health may be facilitated by the use of mobile phone surveys, which are less costly than face-to-face surveys.

The Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI) is a mobile phone based survey that tests the performance of two different questionnaires to measure mental health over the phone.  Read more about our findings here

Further, we draw on data from SARI and the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) to understand how poor mental health correlates with discrimination against women. Read more about our findings here

r.i.c.e.  is organizing a webinar titled  'Gender and mental health in Bihar and India: Developing tools for effective measurement' on July 10th, 2020 (IST) / July 9th, 2020 (US Pacific).  Register for the webinar here