Wellcome Awards £5.3m Grant to Wysa for Adolescent Mental Health Study in India

The funding will support research focused on addressing anxiety and depression in a population facing significant mental health disparities.

Wellcome has awarded £5.3 million to digital mental health company Wysa to fund a scale-up study aimed at adapting and evaluating a clinically validated mental health intervention for adolescent girls living in rural India.

The funding will support research focused on addressing anxiety and depression in a population facing significant mental health disparities.

The project will be led by Wysa in collaboration with academic and community partners in the United Kingdom and India. According to the announcement, the study will focus on modifying an evidence-based digital intervention so that it is culturally and contextually relevant for adolescent girls in rural and low-resource settings.

India is home to more than 253 million adolescents, the largest adolescent population globally. Mental health challenges often begin early, with around half of all mental health conditions emerging before the age of 14. Suicide is among the leading causes of death among young people in the country. Adolescent girls face additional risks, including higher rates of anxiety and depression, as well as structural and social barriers such as limited autonomy, restricted access to technology, lower literacy levels, stigma, and family gatekeeping.

The study will begin by identifying cultural, social, and practical barriers that limit access to mental health support for adolescent girls in rural communities. These findings will inform adaptations to Wysa’s digital intervention, including changes to content and delivery mechanisms to reflect local realities. The adapted intervention will then be evaluated for both clinical efficacy and feasibility of delivery in real-world low- and middle-income settings.

Wysa’s digital mental health tools have previously been studied in peer-reviewed research and deployed across public health systems and healthcare programs in multiple countries. The company’s platform is designed to deliver mental health support through digital channels, making it potentially scalable in areas with limited access to in-person care.

Commenting on the grant, Chaitali Sinha, chief clinical research and development officer at Wysa, said the funding would support deeper adaptation of the intervention beyond language translation, with an emphasis on usability and relevance for adolescent girls in rural India.

Miranda Wolpert, director of mental health at Wellcome, said the funding was awarded as part of Wellcome’s initiative to identify effective approaches for developing and scaling digital innovations for early mental health intervention. She noted that the focus of the project aligns with efforts to address anxiety and depression among adolescent girls in underserved communities.

The study’s findings are expected to contribute to evidence on how digital mental health interventions can be adapted and scaled in low-resource and rural contexts.

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