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Problem-solving therapy (Friendship Bench)

Intervention ID: int_friendship_bench
Evidence strength: strong
Causes: cause_mental_health_lmic, cause_global_health_wellbeing

Mechanism

One-to-one lay problem-solving therapy.

Organizations in this catalog

• org_friendship_bench
• org_happier_lives_fund

Citations (public evaluator pages)

• https://www.happierlivesinstitute.org/friendship-bench-comprehensive-summary/
• https://www.happierlivesinstitute.org/charities/

Evidence notes

HLI rates quality of evidence low–moderate: meta-analysis plus four Friendship Bench RCTs and M&E pre-post (HLI Friendship Bench summary).

Key uncertainties

• FB RCTs: some/high risk of bias in half of studies; moderate imprecision/inconsistency (HLI Friendship Bench summary).
• M&E synthetic control provides limited information; potential substantial bias (HLI Friendship Bench summary).
• Future research could update evaluation (HLI Friendship Bench summary conclusion).

Fungibility notes

HLI reports Friendship Bench funding gap for 2025–2026 including USAID cut impacts; not a formal fungibility model (HLI Friendship Bench summary).

Cost-effectiveness notes (do not treat as verified without citation_urls)

HLI ~48.52 WELLBYs/$1000; ~$20.61/WELLBY.

Agents must look up data/claims_index.json and cite citation_urls before stating numbers.

Provenance

See docs/evaluation-provenance.md and data/graph/evaluations_graph.json.

last_reviewed: 2026-10-01