Clinical Round Tables
Dissemination & Implementation Science
Eve S. Puffer, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina
Jessica F. Magidson, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland
Miya Barnett, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
University of California Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA
Katherine E. Venturo-Conerly, PhD
PhD Candidate
Harvard University
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts
Ali Giusto, Ph.D.
NIH T32 Postdoctoral Fellow
Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute
Delray Beach, Florida
Gabriela A. Nagy, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina
Dwayne Dean, Other
Peer Recovery Specialist
Project HEAL, University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland
The purpose of this clinical roundtable is to consider the practice of “task sharing”--training individuals who are not specialized mental health professionals (e.g., community health workers) to participate in mental healthcare delivery under the training and supervision of more specialized providers. In both high-income and low- and middle-income countries alike, task sharing is a core strategy for increasing access to care in order to address the global mental health treatment gap. During emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, task sharing becomes even more relevant as the gap is exacerbated, care settings are disrupted, and health inequities among vulnerable groups become even more pronounced. Despite its strengths and necessity, task sharing also brings complex challenges. This roundtable will grapple with the key questions, challenges, and strengths of this model, such as: Who is best-placed to deliver care? What types of care can be delivered by non-specialists? How can quality and fidelity be maintained and monitored? What are the ethical considerations? What about the well-being of non-specialists providers themselves? What are the policy- and economic-level challenges and opportunities? How can implementation science methodologies help evaluate, compare, and improve task sharing models with an eye towards wide-scale dissemination and sustainability? Roundtable experts each have direct experience with task sharing that vary by goals, approaches, populations, and settings: community health workers engaging Latina/o families in parent training, Kenyan fathers delivering an alcohol use intervention for other fathers, family strengthening interventions delivered by religious congregation members, and peers and community health workers delivering substance use care and reducing stigma in the US and sub-Saharan Africa. The panel includes perspectives from clinician-researchers, as well as individuals with experience delivering task shared interventions themselves. Panelists will draw from their experiences and the broader literature on task sharing to discuss the challenges and the future of this strategy to respond to the immediate global shortage of mental health care providers.Learning Objectives: