The funding will support research led by Wysa, whose digital mental health interventions have been studied in peer-reviewed research and deployed across public health systems and healthcare programmes internationally.
Working with academic and community partners in the UK and India, the project will adapt an evidence-based intervention to address anxiety and depression among adolescent girls.
India is home to more than 253 million adolescents, the largest such population in the world. Around half of all mental health conditions begin before the age of 14, and suicide is now among the leading causes of death for young people in the country.
Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable, experiencing higher rates of anxiety and depression alongside barriers such as limited autonomy, restricted access to technology, lower literacy, stigma, and family gatekeeping.
The study’s principal investigator Chaitali Sinha, Chief Clinical and R & D Officer at Wysa, will be working with a multidisciplinary study team including Aparna Joshi (Tata Institute of Social Sciences), Ceire Costelloe and Patrick Kierkegaard (Imperial College London), Dhirendra Pratap Singh (Milaan Foundation), and Becky Inkster (University of Cambridge).
The study will first identify the cultural and contextual barriers that limit adolescent girls’ ability to access mental health support. These insights will then be used to adapt Wysa’s intervention so that its method of delivery and content reflects the lived realities of girls and their communities. The study will then evaluate the efficacy of the adapted intervention and its successful delivery in real world low-to-middle-income contexts.
“This funding allows us to go far beyond simple translation,” said Chaitali Sinha. “By working closely with academic and community partners, we aim to co-design a digital intervention that is not only clinically effective, but genuinely usable and relevant for adolescent girls living in rural India.”
Miranda Wolpert, Director of Mental Health at Wellcome, said, “We are delighted to support Wysa in their work to adapt and scale up this evidence-based digital intervention to address anxiety and depression in adolescent girls across rural India. This funding was awarded as part of our call to find the best ways to develop and scale digital innovations for early intervention.”
The project reflects Wellcome’s focus on funding research that addresses global mental health challenges and supports evidence-based solutions for underserved populations. By combining clinical evaluation with real-world delivery considerations, the study aims to generate insights that can inform future mental health interventions in similar low-resource settings.
Wysa is a global mental health platform combining AI and human support with a mission to make wellbeing accessible for everyone. Wysa is used by over seven million users across 105 countries and has more than 45 peer reviewed papers published including randomised control trials with Harvard and Columbia. Wysa works with leading healthcare providers, employers and governments including the UK’s NHS, Ministry of Health in Singapore, and impact programmes in India.
