Global Mental Health (GMH) Research Fellowship: Interventions that Make a Difference

This is the second renewal of our Global Mental Health Research Fellowship: Interventions that Make a Difference. Global mental health implementation science aims to decrease the vast Global Mental Health treatment gap. Mental health disorders are the leading causes of global health-related burden across both sexes, the entire lifespan, and world regions. Unfortunately, mental health disorder prevalence has increased and worsened the social determinants of health that drive mental health treatment gaps. Multiple evidence-based interventions that reduce the impact of mental health disorders exist; however, because evidence-based interventions scale-up has not been a global or US priority, there has been no reduction in global prevalence of mental health disorders since 1990. In this renewal, we maintain our goal of training Fellows to use implementation science to address the challenges of scaling up prevention and recognition of mental health disorders and optimizing access to efficacious mental health treatment in low-resource settings. With its theoretical rigor, methodological innovation, and practical application, our program leverages extensive facilities at Columbia University, our US and Global partners, and distinguished researchers in the field to provide training to the next generation of global mental health scientists with a 2-fold focus: First, Deployment-focused intervention research, in which we train Fellows to contextually adapt and develop mental health evidence-based interventions that are ready to be deployed in multiple geographical areas with community collaboration (e.g., patients, relatives, advocates, providers, administrators, and policy makers) while addressing social determinants of health driving mental health treatment gaps among populations in need; Second, Intervention dissemination, implementation, and services scale-up, to address mental health gaps, associated social determinants of health, and disruptions of the care system. Fellows will learn to examine how mental health evidence-based interventions can be implemented for sustainable scale-up in multiple settings in the US and other countries. With robust mentorship, hands-on experience (i.e., pilot projects focusing on sustainability), global mental health implementation science didactic instruction, and training to excel as competitive researchers (e.g., writing scientific papers, competing for grant support), we will maintain a cohort of 4 Fellows, each with a 3-year appointment, and with new appointments made as Fellows graduate. The Program now will 1) Promote health and mental health by identifying mechanisms driving the mental health treatment gaps, and, increasing access to quality mental health evidence-based interventions care among multiple populations; 2) Improve social determinants of health driving mental health treatment and research gaps ; 3) Improve public mental health system preparedness to proactively address pandemics; and 4) Foster enhanced research collaboration among the next generation of junior investigators .