Single-Session Interventions as a Mental Health Moonshot
Keynote 17 - Single-session Interventions as a Mental Health Moonshot
Saturday, June 27, 2026
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM PDT
Location: Golden Gate A, B2 Level
Earn 1 Credit
Keywords: Implementation, Public Health, Technology/Mobile Health Level of Familiarity: Basic Recommended Readings: Schleider, J. L., Zapata, J. P., Rapoport, A., Wescott, A., Ghosh, A., Kaveladze, B., Szkody, E., & Ahuvia, I. L. (2025). Single-Session Interventions for Mental Health Problems and Service Engagement: Umbrella Review of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. Annual review of clinical psychology, 21(1), 279-303. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-081423-025033 , Kaveladze, B., Ghosh, A., Funkhouser, C. J., Schueller, S. M., & Schleider, J. L. (2025). Longer Single-Session Interventions May Not Be Better: Evidence From Two Randomized Controlled Trials With Online Workers Facing Mental-Health Struggles. Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 10.1177/21677026251358836. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026251358836 , Schleider, J.L., Mullarkey, M.C., Fox, K.R. et al. A randomized trial of online single-session interventions for adolescent depression during COVID-19. Nat Hum Behav 6, 258-268 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01235-0 , Dobias, M. L., Morris, R. R., & Schleider, J. L. (2022). Single-Session Interventions Embedded Within Tumblr: Acceptability, Feasibility, and Utility Study. JMIR formative research, 6(7), e39004. https://doi.org/10.2196/39004 , Sung, J. Y., Sotomayor, I., Szkody, E., & Schleider, J. L. (2025). Provider hesitancy toward single-session interventions for mental health problems: Malleability and implications for adoption in routine care settings. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/cps0000274
Associate Professor, Department of Medical Social Sciences Northwestern University Chicago, Illinois, United States
The discrepancy between need and access to mental health support is incontestable. Due to provider shortages, high treatment costs, and myriad structural barriers, up to 80% of youth and 50% of adults with mental health needs go without services each year. Status-quo mental health systems will never meet population-level needs for support, creating a need for a "Mental Health Moonshot" for sustainable, scalable models of support. Single-session interventions (SSIs) are well-positioned to rapidly increase access to evidence-based supports at precise moments of need, both within and beyond formal healthcare systems. SSIs mitigate key treatment access-barriers: many are self-guided (requiring no therapist) or deliverable by non-professionals; web-based (completable from any location); and 5 to 60 minutes in length, eliminating premature treatment dropout. SSIs are also effective. To date, >400 randomized trials have shown their capacity to reduce mental health problems and increase uptake of further treatment, with sustained positive impacts up to nine months later. This presentation will overview recent scientific and clinical advances in developing and evaluating evidence-based SSIs for youth and adults, along with our research team's multi-sector efforts to disseminate effective SSIs within and outside of traditional healthcare systems.
Learning Objectives:
Describe the concept of 'single-session interventions' (SSIs) for mental health in adolescents and adults.
Explain state-of-the-art research on how, why, and for whom SSIs can reduce mental health problems.
Identify tools and create an implementation plan for using evidence-based SSIs in real-world practice.
