Advancing Community-Based Mental Health Promotion: An Evaluation of a Bilingual Lay Mental Health Navigator Program

Abstract

Barriers to behavioral health care, increasing deaths by suicide, and provider shortages represent critical global public health challenges. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls for upstream mental health strategies that go beyond clinical approaches; however, culturally responsive, community-engaged mental health promotion efforts remain limited in the United States. This research brief presents evaluation results of Mental Health Matters of Washington’s Peer Mental Health Navigator (PMHN) program, which trains lay community members to provide peer mental health support, education, and resource navigation. Researchers used a non-controlled pre- and post-design with a 12-month follow-up survey across seven cohorts of Spanish and English-speaking peer navigators (n = 141) over 3 years. The 6-week bilingual training applied socio-ecological and critical theory frameworks to address mental health holistically, covering stigma, systemic factors, cultural perspectives, communication skills, stress management, suicide prevention, and resource navigation.

Pre- and post-surveys measured knowledge, stigma-related attitudes, self-efficacy, and intentions. Twelve-month follow-up evaluated sustained application of training, mental health conversations initiated, and referrals made. Results showed significant improvements across all measures, with the largest effect sizes for self-efficacy (d = 0.70–0.96) and knowledge (Year 1: d = 0.94; Year 2: d = 0.63; Year 3: d = 0.55). Qualitative analysis revealed high satisfaction, with participants valuing comprehensive resources, skilled facilitation, and culturally responsive content. Twelve-month follow-up showed sustained engagement (97% applied training in their daily lives, 94% had three or more mental health conversations, 77% made two or more referrals). Findings demonstrate the promise of lay health models for expanding community-level mental health promotion and investment in community-driven strategies that go beyond clinical interventions.