In the bustling capital of Ethiopia, a gathering of psychiatrists, public health researchers, and community advocates set out to tackle one of the most pressing questions in global mental health: how do you rebuild a mind, a family, and a community after crisis? The answer, they argued, lies not in treating mental illness in isolation but in weaving psychological recovery into the health of animals, ecosystems, and economies — a framework known as One Health.
The conference, held on December 6 and 7, 2024, in Addis Ababa, was the second in a series organized through a partnership between the Center for International Health at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the International Network for Cooperation in Mental Health, and Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in Ethiopia. Its proceedings, now published in BMC Proceedings, arrive at a moment when the intersection of environmental degradation, armed conflict, and psychological trauma has never been more visible. The meeting drew 64 attendees from an initial registration of 70, including participants from conflict-affected regions such as Mekelle, Jimma, Gondar, and Hawassa, alongside five attendees from Germany.
Ethiopia offers a stark case study in why mental health cannot be separated from broader ecological and social systems. The country has faced ongoing natural and man-made crises, including external and internal conflicts, that have been linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These pressures have stretched an already scarce mental health infrastructure. A community-based cross-sectional study cited in the proceedings found the prevalence of common mental disorders in Ethiopia to be around 24.7 percent. Globally, mental disorders are the leading cause of years lived with disability, with one in every eight people living with a mental disorder.
The conference was structured around three themes. The first addressed rehabilitation and recovery, exploring how community-based care can outperform institutional models. Speakers highlighted successful examples from Nigeria’s Aro village system, which integrates traditional healers, to Malaysia’s Farm Project, which provides meaningful employment for people living with schizophrenia. The second theme examined how a One Health lens can reframe conflict response, connecting human trauma to livestock loss, environmental destruction, and economic collapse. The third explored innovative treatment strategies, from transcranial magnetic stimulation to therapeutic gardening.
One of the most striking presentations came from Mekelle University, where a mental health specialist described the disruption of an outpatient addiction rehabilitation program during the Tigray conflict from 2020 to 2022. The program, established in 2016, provided individual and group therapy alongside occupational and spiritual interventions. The conflict caused widespread death and displacement, and substance use patterns shifted, including new use of tramadol and cannabis even among school children. Post-conflict rebuilding has focused on reconnecting with collaborators and training professionals across Tigray, supported by advocacy and school-based awareness campaigns.
The One Health framework, as applied to mental health, goes beyond managing zoonotic disease to address the socio-ecological determinants of psychological well-being. In agrarian and pastoralist societies such as those in Ethiopia, crises do not merely damage infrastructure; they devastate ecosystems, displace populations, and disrupt livelihoods dependent on livestock. The destruction of environmental and economic fabric can trigger severe psychological trauma, depression, and anxiety. Sustainable psychological healing, the conference argued, must therefore be coupled with environmental restoration, animal welfare, and cross-sectoral community support.
On the technological frontier, the conference examined transcranial magnetic stimulation as an emerging treatment for medication-resistant depression. This non-invasive brain stimulation technique generates a magnetic field through a coil, inducing small electrical currents in targeted brain regions, most commonly the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. It has shown particular promise for patients who have not responded to two or more antidepressants. The Brain Stimulation for Ethiopia’s Advanced Mental Health Care project, a collaboration between Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College and LMU, aims to establish the first non-invasive brain stimulation unit in East Africa, training a core team of two psychiatrists and two nurses through a two-week visit to Munich followed by virtual mentorship.
The conference also spotlighted community-driven interventions. The World Health Organization’s Caregiver Skills Training program at Saint Paul’s has been running for more than seven years, with over 200 caregivers graduating from a structured program of nine weekly sessions and three home visits. The Neurodiversity Center Ethiopia, a non-profit board-led organization, is working to strengthen infant, child, and adolescent mental health services through capacity-building, teacher training, and monthly webinars. Meanwhile, the Desa’a Forest project in northern Ethiopia combines reforestation with livelihood rebuilding, engaging over 10,000 households in beekeeping, poultry raising, and seedling cultivation to support economic recovery and reduce aid dependency.
The proceedings identify a set of recommendations that bridge clinical practice and public policy. These include systematically integrating mental health initiatives into wider environmental and economic recovery programs, institutionalizing a stepped-care model across Ethiopia’s primary, secondary, and tertiary healthcare tiers, and scaling up non-invasive neurostimulation technologies in tertiary centers. The recommendations also call for cultural localization, urging that evidence-based trauma interventions such as Narrative Exposure Therapy utilize local social structures, including traditional elders, religious leaders, and indigenous customs such as the coffee ceremony, to build trust and ensure sustainable adaptation.
What emerges from the conference is a vision of mental health recovery that refuses to be confined to the clinic. It is a vision in which a farmer’s psychological resilience is tied to soil restoration, in which a child’s recovery from trauma is supported by storytelling traditions, and in which cutting-edge brain stimulation coexists with ancient community rituals. The challenge now is translating this integrated framework into sustained policy, funding, and practice across Ethiopia and other low- and middle-income countries facing the compounded pressures of conflict, climate stress, and limited healthcare infrastructure.
Subject of Research: One Health approach to mental health recovery in crisis-affected Ethiopia
Article Title: One Health approach to mental health- mental health recovery in times of crisis: conference proceeding
Article References: Megersa, S. W., Balcha, Y. T., Abdullahi, M. A., Krahl, W., Krahl, N., Jebrini, T., Mahr-Slotawa, J., & Jobst, A. (2026). One Health approach to mental health- mental health recovery in times of crisis: conference proceeding. BMC Proceedings, 20(S30), Article 32. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12919-026-00389-x
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1186/s12919-026-00389-x
Keywords: One Health, mental health, Ethiopia, conflict recovery, transcranial magnetic stimulation, Narrative Exposure Therapy, community rehabilitation, environmental health, global mental health, BMC Proceedings, Health, approach
News Source: Joyce Wexler. (October 29, 2026). One Health Meets Mental Health: Rethinking Crisis Recovery in Ethiopia. Scienmag.
