How Nguvu Health and AXA Mansard want to enable affordable mental healthcare

Over 50 million Nigerians live with mental disorders. According to a World Health Organization 2017 report, about 29 million Africans live with depression, the most common mental health disorder coupled with limited access to mental health care.

Nigeria is still poorly equipped to tackle the challenges around mental healthcare. About 75% of those who need mental healthcare lack access, since the country has only 300 psychiatrists to treat its over 200 million population. Also, there are only eight federal neuropsychiatric hospitals in Nigeria.

In commemoration of this year's World Mental Health Day (WMHD), Nguvu Health and AXA Mansard announced today that they have entered into a strategic partnership that will allow each company to stay true to their mutual vision of improving access to healthcare, including mental health.

"This partnership is a big win for the health sector as it will explore the drivers and impact of mental health issues in the society in an inclusive manner," according to Nguvu Health's co-founder and CMO, Juliet Odumosu.

"This will happen by exploring practices that help users - individual and corporate - both slow down and speed up—in ways that complement each other—so as to help shift the paradigm from stress and survival to excitement and vitality," Odumosu added.

Launched in 2021, Nguvu Health is an on-demand teletherapy platform that offers Nigerians access to clinical psychologists for a fee—so far, it has over 10,000 users. Through the two-year partnership deal, AXA Mansard's policyholders and clients will be granted quarterly discounted wellness sessions and a mental health audit. For AXA Mansard’s users, the health tech will provide discounts for different therapy types, and 15% off couple and support group therapy.

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"This partnership holds special promise for the corporate industry and offers a particular benefit for the healthcare sector, particularly the mental health space by addressing difficulties and disorders created or exacerbated by work such as stress and burnout," Joshua Koya, Nguvu Health's co-founder and CEO said. Other users will get access to sponsored video therapy sessions via generated codes.