Link to full June 2023 Newsletter A Note from the Director May was Mental Health Awareness month in the United States. I particularly appreciate the theme that the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is promoting this year: #MoreThanEnough. The organization explains the meaning: “We want every person out there to know that if all you did was wake up today, that’s more than enough. No matter what, you are inherently worthy of more than enough life, love and healing….
News
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – July/August 2022
UW Consortium for Global Mental Health Spotlight We had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Helen Jack, a new GMH junior faculty member, about her current work and plans for the future. While Helen has recently joined the faculty, she has a long history of global mental health research activity. Can you tell our readers a little about what brought you to Global Mental Health? I started doing global mental health research as an undergraduate at Yale, when I conducted…
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – May/June 2022
We are excited to announce that the UW Global Mental Health Program is now the UW Consortium for Global Mental Health! The University of Washington Consortium for Global Mental Health is an organized research unit whose mission is to provide a collaborative community for global research, capacity-building, learning, and implementation of culturally congruent, sustainable community models for mental health interventions with domestic and international partners. Why a Consortium? Several centers across the university community share our interest in global mental…
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – January/February 2022
Remembering Dr. Paul Farmer We were deeply saddened to learn about the death Paul Farmer earlier this week. The outpouring of grief, love, and respect echoes our own feelings. We have lost a fierce advocate for the development of global health initiatives that seek to serve the most vulnerable among us. To say that he will be missed feels inadequate, but succinctly captures our feelings today. While we will continue to mourn his passing for some time, we will also…
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – December 2021
Happy Holidays and a Note of Appreciation As 2021 comes to a close, we pause to thank you, our readers and our community, for your engagement and participation over the past year. From the Global Mental Health Journal Club to our monthly speaker series, we have enjoyed hosting informative, thought-provoking discussions about key topics in global mental health. We thank our community of collaborators and our faculty and staff researchers for your continued contributions during a second year of pandemic….
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – November 2021
Dr. Jennifer Velloza is studying effective interventions to improve mental health and PrEP adherence and mental health among adolescent girls and young women in areas with a high HIV burden. We asked Dr. Velloza three key questions to learn more about her project and the potential that she sees it having on the health of adolescent girls and young women in South Africa Please give our readers us a summary of your project. In previous studies with adolescent girls and young…
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – October 2021
Dr. Bradley Wagenaar awarded R01 to study an innovative approach to the mental health care cascade in Mozambique Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability worldwide, yet treatment gaps exceed 90% in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Considerable progress is being made in access to mental healthcare through task-shifting to lower-level healthcare providers. While task-sharing may increase access to care, little existing global mental health work is focused on improving the quality of routinely delivered mental healthcare in LMICs. Dr. Bradley Wagenaar, a UW MH faculty member, is looking to address this urgent need for evidence-based strategies…
GMH Newsletter Practicum Feature – September 2021
Featured topic: Blue Space, Mental Health + Urban Design By Andrea Petzel Introduction Nearly 40% of the world’s population lives within 100 km of a coast, resulting in a population density twice the global average [1]. Defined as a transitional area between land and water, human settlements have thrived along biologically rich coastal areas (blue space), and today twenty-three of the world’s largest cities are situated on a coast [2,3]. A growing body of research indicates that access, even visibility…
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – August 2021
2021 August Newsletter Mobile Mental Health in Community-Based Organizations: A Stepped Care Approach to Women’s Mental Health Untreated depression is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality among women in low and middle- income countries (LMIC). Dr. Amritha Bhat (UW GMH faculty) and Dr. Krishnamachari Srinivasan were recently awarded an R21 from NIMH for their pilot project on mobile mental health in community-based organizations. This project will test the feasibility of an interactive voice-response, mobile health application (MITHRA) for screening,…
GMH Newsletter Practicum Feature – July 2021
July 2021 Newsletter Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month July is National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. Since the US House of Representatives passed the resolution in 2008 in honor of Bebe Moore Campbell, mental health advocates in the United States have focused attention on improving access to mental health care and increasing public awareness among BIPOC communities, in particular, about mental illness. Ms. Campbell, an award-winning novelist and journalist, co-founded the National Alliance on Mental Illness…