Europe is in a time of dramatic change, war, economic crisis, climate change, migration, digitalisation, pandemics, ageing and demographic change, place increasing stress and pressure on our societies to adapt to fast-changing situations. Particular vulnerable groups in the general population are especially at risk of being disadvantaged by dramatic societal change, of experiencing particular stressors, and of suffering (further) negative impacts on their wellbeing, including mental health. Members of MENTBEST have researched, created and delivered community-based interventions to reduce depression and suicidal behaviour. These interventions have been implemented and proven effective in 120 communities across 17 EU countries. Building on this experience and intervention framework (EAAD 4-Level-Intervention), the MENTBEST consortium will (a) characterise the scale of the change-related mental health challenges; (b) work with patients, healthcare and other stakeholders to identify interventions and tools that can best build resilience and maintain mental health; (c) combine these interventions with an adapted and broadened EAAD 4 Level Intervention into a comprehensive community-based intervention (COMBINA) (d) deliver and validate COMBINA in five model regions, across five countries, with particular analysis of the benefits for vulnerable groups. An innovative addition will be the RCT of app-based self-monitoring and self-management technologies for mental health, which use AI and n=1 longitudinal statistics to create individualised predictive models and provide users preventive and self-management support. After validation and process evaluation, enhanced COMBINA will be a ready-to-use package which can be adopted throughout Europe and beyond. MENTBEST will inform a comprehensive communication,dissemination and policy-input programme to maximise impact, building on our relevant experience at all levels, from public outreach to government and EU policy.

Depression and anxiety are the most prevalent mental health difficulties in the workplace in the EU, causing immense suffering and costing the global economy €1 trillion each year in lost productivity. Certain sectors, in particular construction, health and ICT, have an elevated risk of mental health difficulties, with those working in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) being particularly vulnerable. However, most SMEs have limited capacity to address mental health promotion and provide mental health interventions to staff. As SMEs comprise more than 90% of all EU businesses, there is a huge potential to influence population health. MINDUP aims to improve mental health and wellbeing in the workplace by developing, implementing and evaluating a comprehensive, multilevel intervention targeting both clinical (depressive, anxiety disorders) and non-clinical (stress, burnout, wellbeing, depressive symptoms) mental health issues, as well as combating the stigma of mental (ill-) health. The intervention will be tailored for SMEs in construction, healthcare and ICT and assessed in a multi-country Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial. The primary aim is to improve mental health in the workplace, with a secondary aim to reduce depression and suicidal behaviour. MINDUP will be conducted by an interdisciplinary consortium that includes world leading experts in mental health in occupational settings, depression, anxiety, stress, suicide prevention and stigma. It builds on a solid foundation of evidence, in particular leveraging partner European Alliance Against Depression’s four-level intervention to improve mental health and reduce suicide risk and partner Mates in Construction’s successful workplace intervention to reduce suicide in construction workers. Long-lasting impact is also a key priority of the project, with activities dedicated to the development of replication materials to support long-term use of the MINDUP intervention in SMEs across Europe.

ImpleMentAll will develop, apply, and evaluate tailored implementation strategies in the context of on-going eHealth implementation initiatives in the EU and beyond. Common mental health disorders account for an alarming proportion of the global burden of disease. Being regarded as an evidence-based psychotherapeutic eHealth intervention, Internet-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (iCBT), has the potential to answer to this societal challenge by providing an efficacious and efficient treatment from which more people can benefit. As a result, various iCBT implementation projects are currently conducted across the world. We propose to use this natural laboratory to develop and evaluate a toolkit for tailored implementation strategies that is expected to make implementation trajectories more efficient. The objectives for ImpleMentAll are: 1) To develop a generic Integrated Theory-based Framework for Intervention Tailoring Strategies (the ItFits-toolkit) for data-driven tailored implementation of evidence-based eHealth services. 2) To demonstrate the impact of the ItFits toolkit on the implementation of eHealth for common mental disorders, in 9 European countries, 2 LMIC, and Australia. 3) To disseminate the validated toolkit in various healthcare contexts across Europe. ImpleMentAll is a true multidisciplinary international collaboration that unites key experts in clinical practice, health innovation, clinical research, and implementation science. Combined with it’s unique setup, ImpleMentAll will be able to test if tailoring implementation strategies lead to more efficient implementation. The resulting ItFits-toolkit will enable data driven evaluation of eHealth implementation projects in terms key performance indicators for process, effectiveness, and efficiency outcomes. Its methods, materials, and strategies will provide concrete guidance on tuning implementation interventions to local determinant of practice across a variety of health care systems.

Recent years have seen rapid changes in the workplace arising from the digital and green transitions (‘twin transition’), as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. New forms of work and work management have arisen, which can affect the physical and mental health of workers in new ways (both positive and negative) that are not yet well understood. Yet, workplaces can be health-promoting environments. Robust, comprehensive data must be generated, made available to key stakeholders, translated into evidence-based guidance to support the design of policies and used to develop evidence-based interventions and guidelines to promote mental and physical well-being and health in the workplace. PROSPERH will gather timely data and robust evidence on factors influencing mental and physical health in the workplace from the literature and analysis of existing high-quality datasets. Based on this evidence and building on existing EU-funded and national interventions, the project will develop and validate the multi-level PROSPERH intervention, delivered via the PROSPERH Portal. The intervention will target both organisational (work), peer and individual (worker) aspects, with three components focusing on health promotion, online self-monitoring & self-management and clinical care or coaching referral pathways. Development will focus on tailoring content for three sectors experiencing significant change (telework and ICT-based mobile work, health and construction), with validation carried out in 10 representative European countries and Australia through a cluster-randomised controlled trial to determine effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. To ensure that the expected impacts of PROSPERH are achieved during and beyond the project lifetime, key outputs of the project will include open access publications and FAIR datasets, guidelines and recommendations and a roadmap for making the PROSPERH Portal freely available in a sustainable manner.