Assessing Mental Health and Psychosocial Needs and Resources: Toolkit for Humanitarian Settings

While mental health and psychosocial problems are common in all communities of the world, these problems are much more frequent among people who have faced adversity, such as exposure to a humanitarian crisis. A key element of responding to these problems is a better understanding of needs and resources. WHO and UNHCR receive frequent requests from the field to advise on assessment of mental health and psychosocial issues in humanitarian settings. 

This document is rooted in two policy documents, the IASC Reference Group’s (2010) Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Humanitarian Emergencies: What Should Humanitarian Health Actors Know? and the Sphere Handbook’s Standard on Mental Health (Sphere Project, 2011). This document is written primarily for public health actors. As the social determinants of mental health and psychosocial problems occur across sectors, half of the tools in the accompanying toolkit cover MHPSS assessment issues relevant to other sectors as well as the health sector. This document should help you to collect the necessary information to assist people affected by humanitarian crises more effectively.