Merrian Jacqueline Brooks, DO

Merrian Jacqueline Brooks, DO, is an adolescent medicine specialist and pediatric global health expert. Currently, she is an attending physician and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at CHOP. Dr. Brooks also holds a joint affiliation with the Penn Center for Global Health, where she is the Director of Pediatrics and Research for the Botswana-UPenn Partnership. Her research time is spent primarily in Botswana, where she focuses on improving access to evidence-based behavioral interventions for youth in low- and middle-income countries. Specifically, her short-term goal is to develop and evaluate the Friendship Bench intervention. A theory-based, problem-solving therapy (PST) model that uses physical benches staffed by trained community health workers (lay counselors) to provide counseling sessions for patients with common mental illnesses. She is adapting and evaluating the Friendship Bench for adolescents at risk for HIV. She is also working to integrate mental health services into various community and clinical spaces using implementation science.