Provision of mental healthcare is currently limited and not accessible to all those who require it. The nature of this gap in mental health support calls for a solution that is more accessible, affordable and personalized to prevent the exacerbation of mild mental health issues and to offer support as an adjunct to state of the art therapeutics. To this effect, the non-profit mental health foundation “Mind Support” has been set up, an online peer support platform. This paper analyses the approach and solutions offered by this platform for the growing gap in mental health support and demonstrates the benefits and limitations of online peer support in general. Online peer support as provided by “Mind Support” has the advantage of being anonymous and is free of charge making it accessible to everybody. At the same time, “Mind Support” reaps the benefits of traditional peer support options, such as having a more trauma-informed approach rather than an illness-focused one, aiding in the reduction of stigma and welcoming dialogue. The aim of this article is to stimulate the use of online tools to bridge the mental health support gap.

Antimicrobials are widely used worldwide in food animal production for controlling and preventing disease and for improving feed conversion efficiency and growth promotion. Inappropriate use of antimicrobials in animal agriculture has the potential to promote antimicrobial resistance, which represents a threat to human, animal, and environmental health. State and municipal policies in the United States have recently been implemented to improve antimicrobial use and reporting in this sector. This study analyzed the implementation of two state-level policies (California (CA) and Maryland (MD)) and a city-level policy in San Francisco (SF), California that aimed to reduce the use of antimicrobials in food-animals and increase transparency of antimicrobial use. A qualitative analysis was based on in-depth interviews with key informants (KIs) (n = 19) who had direct experience implementing or working in the context of these sub-national policies. Interviews were recorded and transcriptions were analyzed independently by two researchers using a three-stage, grounded theory coding procedure. This study identified four major findings, including 1) vague language on antimicrobial use within policies reduces policy effectiveness; 2) the lack of reporting by producers challenges the ability to evaluate the impact of the policies on actual use; 3) diverse stakeholders need to be involved in order to develop a more effective policy; and 4) funding should be linked to the policy to provide for reporting and data analysis. This analysis provides insights on the successes and failures of existing policies and serves to inform future sub-national policies aiming to improve the judicious use of antimicrobials in food-animals.