Abstract

The field of Global Mental Health has emerged in the past two decades, following the landmark World Development Report ‘Investing in Health’ which showed the importance of mental disorders in contributing to disability worldwide. Two of the five goals set by the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health exercise (Collins et al, 2011) were to improve knowledge about effective treatments for common mental disorders in low-resource settings and to build human capacity to conduct mental health research within low and middle-income countries.

Dr Melanie Abas, Clinical Reader in Global Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, will talk about her work addressing these goals especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. She will describe research in Zimbabwe to culturally adapt and trial interventions for depression in primary health care, and for depression and non-adherence to HIV medication in HIV care settings. She will also describe a novel capacity building program, the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI), part of the Wellcome Trust ‘Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science’ scheme, which is developing a pipeline of 50 doctoral, post-doctoral and MPhil mental health researchers across four African countries.

The seminar will be chaired by Professor Nick Wareham, Director of the MRC Epidemiolgy Unit, University of Cambridge and Director of CEDAR .