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…
Category: News
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 – May 2021
2021 May Newsletter May is Mental Health Month! Mental Health Awareness month was launched in 1949 by Mental Health America, and each year the organization announces a theme and materials to educate the public about mental illnesses, bring attention to people with lived experience, and to promote strategies for sustaining mental health. This year’s theme is #Tools2Thrive and continues last year’s efforts to help the population cope with the stressors of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Me You Can’t See Mental…
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – April 2021
2021 April Newsletter Spotlight: UW eDGH New Global Mental Health Course UW Global Mental Health Program, in collaboration with eDGH, recently launched a new online course on Global Mental Health for health professionals around the world. Developed by Dr. Christopher Kemp and Dr. Deepa Rao, this 10-week course covered key issues in global mental health, such as social determinants of mental health, stigma associated with mental health conditions, promotion of positive mental health, assessment, prevention, treatment of disorders, and integrated…
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – June 2020
Link to full newsletter here Perspectives from GMH Faculty on racial justice and sustainable change June 2020 was an historic month in Seattle and around the world as protests against police brutality and in support of Black lives expanded. In Seattle, as elsewhere, a space opened for Black students, staff and faculty in our university to verbalize their experiences of racism writ large and to be heard in a new way. This moment has also provided an opportunity for all…
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – May 2020
Digital Solutions to Mental Health Needs in the United States Mental Health in the Digital Age Videoconferencing with a psychiatrist, a pill that is tracked by a smartphone app when swallowed, and virtual reality treatments are all ways in which technology is rapidly transforming mental healthcare. Digital health is a booming sector that helps close the gaps in many high-income countries and low- or middle-income countries alike, and the focus on mental health in particular has exploded in recent years….
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – April 2020
Perspectives from Seattle: COVID-19 and Mental Health The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in widespread recommendations or mandates for physical distancing in countries across the globe. Stay-at-home orders, school closures, and abrupt changes to behavioral patterns have left millions with disrupted social networks. Although the literature on the mental health effects of epidemics is limited and focuses primarily on the disease itself, we know that large-scale economic or social disruptions and group traumatic experiences can lead to a variety of…
GMH Newsletter Featured Topics – March 2020
Changing the Mental Health System from the Bottom Up: The Friendship Bench “Bottom-Up” Implementation: The Friendship Bench Worldwide, 80% of individuals with common mental illnesses reside in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), but LMICs, on average, allocate less than 0.5% of their national budgets on mental healthcare, while high income countries typically spend over 5% (1,2). In most LMIC settings there is a profound lack of mental health policy development and implementation to address the significant need for mental healthcare…