People with lived experience should be co-creators, not passive recipients
Across the world, a quiet shift is underway in how people understand mental illness — not as a condition to be managed from a distance, but as a human experience demanding dignity, inclusion, and rights. The WHO's QualityRights course has reached more than 141,000 learners globally, measurably improving attitudes by nearly 23 percent and achieving completion rates far beyond the norm for online education. In the Philippines, epidemiologist Emmanuel Sevilleja found in this course not merely new knowledge, but a reorientation of purpose — a reminder that data without empowerment is incomplete, and that the people most affected by mental health systems must help shape them.
- Stigma, coercive practices, and the exclusion of people with psychosocial disabilities from decisions about their own care remain urgent, systemic failures in mental health systems worldwide.
- A WHO online course broke through where most digital training fails, achieving a 54% completion rate among over 141,000 global learners and producing measurable shifts in attitudes and practice.
- Low- and middle-income countries saw the sharpest attitude improvements — 29% versus 21% in wealthier nations — revealing both deeper need and stronger receptiveness in resource-constrained settings.
- The course reframes mental health care around human rights and person-centered practice, equipping clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and service users alike with tools they can apply immediately.
- In the Philippines, Sevilleja's institution is already changing — stigma is being challenged, rights-based care is taking hold, and the people once treated as passive subjects are being recognized as co-creators of solutions.
Emmanuel Sevilleja is an epidemiologist at the National Center for Mental Health in the Philippines, but he understands his work as something beyond data. It is, for him, a pursuit of equity and human rights. His perspective shifted decisively during fieldwork, when he listened to people living with psychosocial, intellectual, and cognitive disabilities describe the stigma and exclusion they faced within the very systems meant to help them. He understood then that better science alone would not transform mental health — something deeper had to change in how people are seen and included.
That understanding led him to the WHO's QualityRights in Mental Health course, a six-module online program grounding mental health care in human rights, dignity, and recovery. The course changed not just what Sevilleja knows, but how he works — how he designs research, interprets findings, and engages with the people his work concerns. Its central insistence is that service users are not passive recipients but co-creators, and that their voices must shape policy, research, and care.
A global evaluation of more than 3,000 learners confirmed that this message lands. Overall attitudes toward people with mental health conditions improved by nearly 23 percent after course completion. The gains were steeper in low- and middle-income countries — 29 percent — compared to just over 20 percent in wealthier nations, suggesting the course addresses a more acute need where resources are scarce.
What distinguished the course was its practicality. It offered real-world scenarios showing how rights-based principles apply in clinical settings, research, and advocacy. It was designed for everyone — not only health professionals, but service users, families, and communities. And it succeeded where most online programs do not: while typical completion rates sit between 10 and 30 percent, this course reached 54 percent, with over 141,000 people enrolled worldwide.
At Sevilleja's institution, the effects are already visible — awareness is rising, stigma is being challenged, and care is shifting toward rights-based, person-centered models. Available free at whoacademy.org, the course has become for him and thousands of others not just a training tool, but a means of reimagining what mental health care can be.
Jesus Emmanuel A. D. Sevilleja works as an epidemiologist at the National Center for Mental Health in the Philippines, and he sees his job as something larger than data collection. It is, he says, both a scientific puzzle and a human calling—a way to advance equity, empowerment, and human rights. His research generates evidence on the burden and outcomes of mental health conditions, work meant to shape policy and clinical practice. But the turning point in his career came not in a lab or at a conference. It came during fieldwork, when he encountered people living with psychosocial, intellectual, and cognitive disabilities. Their accounts of stigma, discrimination, and exclusion shifted something in him. He realized that transforming mental health required more than better science. It required a transformation in how people are treated, how they are seen, how they are included in the very systems meant to serve them.
That realization led him to the WHO's QualityRights in Mental Health course, a six-module online program designed to challenge stigma and promote person-centered care. The course reshaped how Sevilleja thinks about his own work. It grounded mental health not in diagnosis alone but in human rights, dignity, and the possibility of recovery. More importantly, it changed how he sees the people he studies. They are not passive subjects. They are not recipients waiting for experts to decide their fate. They are co-creators of solutions, and their voices and preferences must shape the outcomes of research, policy, and program design. He committed to embedding these principles into his future work—into how he designs studies, collects data, interprets findings. Knowledge, he now understands, means nothing if it does not empower the people it concerns.
Sevilleja's transformation is not isolated. A global evaluation of the course, which examined data from more than 3,000 learners, found that attitudes toward people with mental health conditions shifted measurably after completion. Overall, attitudes improved by nearly 23 percent. But the gains were not evenly distributed. In low- and middle-income countries, the improvement reached 29 percent. In high-income countries, it was just over 20 percent. The disparity suggests something important: the course addressed a more acute need in resource-constrained settings, or perhaps the learners there were more receptive to its message. Either way, the data showed that a structured intervention could move the needle on how people think about mental illness and those who experience it.
What made the course work was not just its content but its design. It offered practical scenarios and real-world examples showing how human rights principles could be applied in clinical settings, research projects, and policy work. It addressed concrete problems: how to challenge stigma, how to reduce coercive practices, how to ensure that service users have a genuine voice. And it was built for everyone—not just doctors and nurses, but service users themselves, families, and community members. Mental health, the course insisted, is not a specialist concern. It is everyone's concern, and real change requires collective effort.
The course also succeeded where many online programs fail. Completion rates typically hover between 10 and 30 percent. This course achieved 54 percent. More than 141,000 people globally have enrolled. Sevilleja ranked at the top of that cohort, though all employees at his institution were required to take it. What he found most valuable was not the theory but the applicability. The strategies could be used immediately—in clinical work, in research design, in advocacy, in policy conversations. The course did not ask learners to accept a new philosophy in the abstract. It showed them how to live it.
At Sevilleja's institution, the effects are already visible. Awareness has risen. Stigma is being challenged. The approach to care is shifting toward rights-based, person-centered practice. He has become, in his own words, a champion of change—someone who understands that transforming mental health systems means moving away from outdated, coercive models toward ones that are inclusive, equitable, and grounded in respect for human dignity. The course is available free at whoacademy.org, along with other training on health topics. For Sevilleja and thousands of others, it has become a tool not just for learning but for reimagining what mental health care could be.
Notable Quotes
The course reshaped the way I view mental health by grounding it in human rights, dignity and recovery-oriented practice. Now I will embed rights-based principles in study design, data collection and interpretation so that research not only produces knowledge but also empowers service users.— Jesus Emmanuel A. D. Sevilleja
In my institution I have seen positive change in raising awareness, challenging stigma and moving towards a rights-based, person-centered approach to care.— Jesus Emmanuel A. D. Sevilleja
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What made Sevilleja's experience different from someone who simply read about rights-based care in a journal article?
He encountered real people first—their stories of stigma and exclusion. The course came after that encounter, so it wasn't abstract theory. It was a framework for understanding what he had already witnessed and a roadmap for changing his own practice.
The data shows bigger attitude shifts in low-income countries. Why would that be?
Possibly because the need is more acute there. In resource-constrained settings, coercive practices and exclusion are often more visible, more normalized. When someone shows you a better way, and you can see immediately how it applies to the people around you, the shift feels urgent and real.
A 54 percent completion rate is remarkable for online learning. What explains that?
The course was practical. It didn't ask people to adopt a philosophy and figure out the rest themselves. It showed them exactly how to apply rights-based thinking in their actual work—in a clinic, in a research project, in a policy meeting. People finished because they could use it.
Sevilleja talks about service users as co-creators rather than subjects. How does that change research?
It means you're not studying people; you're studying with them. Their insights shape the questions you ask, how you collect data, what the findings mean. The research becomes accountable to the people it concerns, not just to the institution or the funder.
Is this course a one-time intervention, or does it signal a larger shift in how mental health systems operate?
It's both. The course itself is a tool, but what matters is whether institutions like Sevilleja's actually embed these principles into their structures. He's one person at one center. The real test is whether 141,000 learners become 141,000 agents of change in their own systems.