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Telephone Calls for Mental Health

Join us (or we’ll join you) to leverage this proven protocol for an empathy-oriented telephone based program that meaningfully improves loneliness, depression and anxiety.  For community-based organizations, toolkit coming soon.  For health plans and providers, we want to work with you to understand how to make this work for at-risk populations that could benefit. Either way, get in touch.

Program and Results
As reported in: AMA  |  CNN  |  Forbes |  Medline/Reuters Health  |  Scientific American  |  Axios |  NYT |  More

  • Results of a 240-person randomized controlled trial (Feb 23rd 2021, peer-reviewed publication, JAMA Psychiatry)
  • Approach and significance described in interview (Mar 8th 2021, 3 minute video, Scripps TV)
  • Program described, with example caller/participant interaction (Jan 2021, 5 minute audio, KUT Austin 90.5)
  • Reflection by researcher, Maria Cowley-Morillo, who talked to participants to survey their feelings before and after the program. (Oct 2020, blog post, Dell Med News)

Learning Together

  • How a wooden bench in Zimbabwe is starting a revolution in mental health by Alex Riley. From Mosaic.

Local Resources

For more in Austin, get in touch with Meals on Wheels of Central Texas (MOWCTX).  We are working with them to support their inclusion of our learning into their Care Calls program.

  • Contact MOWCTX if you’re interested in volunteering.
  • Call Meals on Wheels main phone line at 512-476-MEAL (512-476-6325) if you’re interested in becoming a client.

Join us to scale the Sunshine Calls program for communities you serve.  Contact us if you are:

  • A community-based organization that is already running a phone calls program for adults*
  • A policy focused organization that wants to support payment reform to pay for what matters.
  • An organization that wants to partner to measure or create together with us
  • A funder interested in supporting scaling this work
  • A health insurance company or a self-insured employer interested in paying for results in mental health.

*If you’re a community-based organization that is already running a phone calls program for adults, we’d love to share our approach with you to use as you see fit. We can’t guarantee results without all the components we used in following our protocol, but there may be aspects you can pick up and implement straight away that are likely to increase effectiveness of your initiative. We’d love to help. Get in touch. 

Sunshine Calls is just one of the programs we’re testing. Learn more about the Factor Health platform.

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News

  • May 15, 2024 – Mini Kahlon, PhD, presented an abstract titled “Effect of a Layperson-Delivered Empathy-Focused Telephone Program on Glycemic Management for FQHC Patients With Unmanaged Diabetes: A Randomized Trial,” co-authored with Nazan Aksan, PhD, at the 2024 Society for General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Annual Meeting.
  • Mar 21, 2024 – Mini Kahlon, PhD, published an editorial, Understanding and Intervening in Nutrition-Related Health Disparities, Advances in Nutrition.
  • Dec 8, 2023 – Mini Kahlon speaks on Food as Medicine at the 2023 Annual Texas NMDoH Consortium Conference: Advancing Research, Policy and Practice
  • Oct 10, 2023 – Factor Health Founder, Mini Kahlon, PhD, speaks at  HLTH 2023 on “The Benefits of Being Neighborly“
  • Oct 6, 2023 – ‘Listening for Health’ panel at 2023 Healthier Texas Summit featuring Factor Health team. Agenda | Register
  • July 25, 2023 – Factor Health receives a $300,000 Empowering Health grant from UnitedHealthcare 
  • June 8, 2023 – Virtual Event: Nutrition Incentive Hub’s National Convening virtual panel, Food Meets Medicine: What We Need to Connect Nutrition Security with Healthcare | Register Now
  • June 7, 2023 – Webinar: Food Is Medicine: Program Designs and Strategies in Texas | Register Now 
  • June 6, 2023 – Whitepaper release: Scaling the Impact of Food on Health: Cross-Sectoral Research Opportunities
  • Apr 12, 2023 – Psychiatry Online: Effect of a Layperson-Delivered Telephone Program for People With Depressive Symptoms
  • Mar 8, 2023 – The Other 80 podcast: Building Health Ecosystems with Dr. Mini Kahlon 
  • Feb 15, 2023 – Stat: How ‘empathetic engagement’ can increase access to mental health care
  • Jan 2, 2023 – The New York Times: The 7-Day Happiness Challenge – Day 2: The Secret Power of the 8-Minute Phone Call. 
  • Oct 25, 2022 – Axios Finish Line: Lonely America
  • Sep 15, 2022 – Dell Med Feature Story: A Prescription for Broccoli 
  • July 2022 – El Mundo: Los Niños Deben Comer Más Vegetales/Children Should Eat More Vegetables. 
  • June 2022 – Austin American Statesman: Dell Medical School study: Kids will eat vegetables if they are available.
  • May 2022 -Christensen Institute White Paper: You Are What You Treat. Profiles Factor Health as an innovative business model.
  • May 2022 – Release: Easy, Flexible Access to Produce, Resources Boosts Healthy Eating for Central Texas Kids.  JAMA Network Open Paper.
  • Dec 2021 – The Clayton Christensen Institute: To improve individual lives, a top-down approach won’t work
  • Nov 2021 – Health Affairs Lunch & Learn: The future of health system transformation with Mini Kahlon | Register now
  • May 2021 – AMA | Reflection on results of trial assessing the impact of layperson calls on mental health | Video | Article
  • Spring 2021 – Texas Standard  |  CNN  |  Forbes  | Healthline  |  KXAN  | Scientific American: Empathetic phone calls from laypersons reduce loneliness, depression in older adults
  • Mar 8, 2021 – Scripps National News: Sunshine Calls help improve mood and health
  • Feb 23, 2021 – JAMA Psychiatry: Effect of layperson-delivered, empathy-focused program of telephone calls on loneliness, depression, and anxiety among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: A randomized clinical trial

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