Eve Puffer
Director, Duke Center for Global Mental Health
Pamela and Jack Egan Associate Professor
Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
Associate Research Professor of Global Health
Dr. Puffer is a global mental health researcher and a licensed clinical psychologist. Her research focuses on developing and evaluating integrated community-based interventions to promote child mental health, improve family functioning, and prevent HIV risk behavior. She has conducted much of this work in rural Kenya. Before joining Duke, Dr. Puffer was a research advisor at the International Rescue Committee conducting evaluations of humanitarian programs in refugee settings. She is an investigator on multiple studies of child mental health and parenting interventions in Thailand, Ethiopia, and Liberia.
Projects
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Community-sourced Interventions for Global Mental Health
Kenya
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Developing a direct observational measure of family functioning for low-resource settings: Establishing reliability and validity in a Kenyan sample
Kenya
- National Evaluation of Quality of Childcare
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Development and Evaluation of a Family- and Church-based Intervention for Mental Health Promotion and HIV Prevention for Adolescents in Rural Kenya
Kenya
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Development of culturally-grounded assessment tools to measure family functioning and mental health in Kenya
Kenya
- Parenting Program Evaluation: Monrovia, Liberia
Publications
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Sim A, Puffer E, Eagling-Peche S, Lwin KZ, Melendez-Torres GJ, Vyas S, et al. Parenting on the border: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial of a trauma-informed, edutainment-enhanced intervention to improve parenting and mental health among migrant and displaced caregivers in Thailand. Ssm Mental Health. 2025 Dec 1;8.Johnson SL, Hamisi HZ, Owity OJ, Ochieng YA, Goel P, Bielskis M, et al. The Intersection of Mental Health and Intimate Partner Violence Among Adolescents in Kenya: A Qualitative Study. Violence against women. 2025 Jun;10778012251351920.Sim A, Lwin KZ, Eagling-Peche S, Melendez-Torres GJ, Vyas S, Calderon F, et al. Effectiveness of a universal film intervention in reducing violence against children and increasing positive parenting among migrant and displaced caregivers from Myanmar: a community-based cluster randomised trial. The Lancet regional health Southeast Asia. 2025 Feb;33:100526.Bond L, Cheonga F, Byansi W, Puffer E, Betancourt TS. Exploring Nonspecialist Preparedness to Deliver an Evidence-Based, Family Strengthening Intervention in Rwanda: A Qualitative Study. The journal of behavioral health services & research. 2025 Jan;52(1):139–54.
See more publications at Scholars@Duke