Rachana Parikh

Dr. Rachana Parikh works as a mental health specialist in PATH’s India country program. She is also a consultant with the World Bank. Her work primarily focuses on developing scalable mental health interventions for low-resource settings for young people, including technology-driven interventions and promoting integration of mental health in the public health and primary health care programs in India, in partnership with national and state governments.

She is a medical doctor with a PhD in adolescent mental health and experience of working with national and state governments on health systems strengthening. At PATH, she has provided technical support and leadership to developing comprehensive and multi-country landscaping and reviews on mental health-related policies and programs, especially focusing on technology for mental health and NCDs in primary health care, common mental disorders, youth mental health, the Covid-19 pandemic, and mental health. Presently, she is supporting the development of demonstration models for integrating mental health within primary health care.

Over the past 15+ years, she has worked closely with government and non-government stakeholders in India towards strengthening mental health care within primary healthcare. She was a contributing author and coordinated the Mental, Neurological, and Substance Use Disorders volume in the third edition of Disease Control Priorities.

She has also contributed to national and international research projects and reviews related to the development of scalable mental health interventions in low-resource settings and has published in many high-impact peer-reviewed journals.