Global Mental Health Unboxed #11 Special Edition
Your monthly newsletter for all things global mental health
11 October 2021
Dear readers,
Welcome to the World Mental Health Day edition of the newsletter! We mark what has become less of a day and more of a month, and in recognition of that I have packed the newsletter even more, looking to provide you with enough material to genuinely last a month.
Take a peek at the full calendar of events at globallyminded.org and you will see that October is full of interesting things happening, sometimes two or three in a day. I have highlighted some of them below in the Events section. Every day there is news about something exciting in our field, which I try to capture in the News and Resources sections (and feel free to send me your news!). We seem to be at a turning point, gaining wider recognition, and global mental health news now makes it to the front page of media, as the Publications section would attest. Sadly, the attention is mostly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as a field, we came prepared to argue for greater investment and commitment, armed with data, studies, advocacy and inspired initiatives. And if you are looking to join the group effort, maybe your opportunity will appear in the Jobs section.
Any feedback and suggestions you want to send will reach me at manolova.gergana@gmail.com. I look forward to all comments and it makes me happy that people find utility in this newsletter, to which I devote a great deal of thought every month.
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Yours,
Gergana
News and Notes in Global Mental Health
Here I share interesting pieces of information, announcements and news that have reached me in our field. I will rely on your contributions as well - please share your news or announcements with me.
Youth Innovation Financing Round
Grand Challenges Canada have opened their second round of seed funding in Global Mental Health, directed particularly at innovations for mental health literacy and youth-friendly services of the most underserved young people in low- and middle-income countries. Seed grants of up to $250,000 CAD are available. The good support, diverse selection and high-profile past interventions make this a particularly appealing opportunity for anyone working in these communities and looking for their chance to do something sizeable. Important deadlines are 23 November (for registration) and 1 December (for application). You can see in the previous edition of this newsletter some of the initiatives funded already. Find out the rest here.
Zoom Does Care
Videoconferencing company Zoom is cleverly turning around the pandemic sentiment on the impact of remote everything on our mental health. Zoom Cares, their social impact arm, chose through a group of advisors with lived experience and professional knowledge 8 organizations, which will receive funding totaling $2 million USD to scale up their mental health work. 6 are US-based, 1 is based in Zimbabwe and 1 in India - learn more about the grants here.
Mental Health and Migration Review
The World Health Organization is is requesting bids to conduct a global evidence review on mental health and migration. The heart of this timely review is a comprehensive scoping review of academic and gray literature - in all six United Nations languages - which covers the conditions of depression, anxiety and psychosis and refugees’ and migrants’ access to mental health services. The request for proposals is due by 12 October. Read more about it here.
Psychosis Around the World
Four years ago, I worked with the Volunteering and International Psychiatry Special Interest Group (VIPSIG) of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK, to put together a collection of brief perspectives from more than 35 countries on depression around the world to mark World Healh Day 2017. Now we are back into the fray to do the same thing on the topic of psychosis around the world. Please join us with your 500-word perspective about how psychosis is experienced, treated, considered in your country or setting. Anyone can write, and submissions from people with lived experience, students of mental health, people in other fields of work, researchers and professionals are most welcome. Email me at manolova.gergana@gmail.com by 16 October.
Events in Global Mental Health
The event calendar for 2021 is updated and you can keep track of it at globallyminded.org. Most of the events this year are taking place online and there is a serious question mark hanging over those announced to be in person. The online events are announced on a very short timeline and I often put them on the events list only 2-3 days before they are due, so I would recommend you keep checking the list regularly to see what is coming up.
11 October 2021 - Investing in mental health: a panel event to coincide with the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings - organized by the advocacy organization United for Global Mental Health, this event is intended to spread the economic argument for investing in mental health. We will hear from the experts about the returns on investment and the entry points where funding will do the most good. I wonder if cash transfers will be on the agenda given some promising results in trials. In any case, funding can’t come soon enough, and we can all put pressure on the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to make it happen.
19 October 2021 - “How Did I Get Here?” Career Paths in Mental Health Series (Human Rights, Legal, Policy) - the GMH@Harvard Initiative is putting up the next event in the career series with speakers from all over the world. A good place to get inspiration and courage to take your next step on what is usually a non-linear path, the career events include the option to ask your own questions and can also give you an idea whom to contact to get more information and where to look for mentorship and guidance.
4-5 November 2021 - 4th African Diaspora Global Mental Health Virtual Conference by the African Global Mental Health Institute - spread the world for anyone interested in working in African settings or with African diaspora on mental health. The online setting is perfect for those looking to connect all over the world. While you are waiting for the conference, make sure to check out the webinars of the Institute from the past two years or so here.
Jobs in Global Mental Health
The jobs listed here might not be advertised as being in global mental health and the decision for including them is mine alone. Unless otherwise stated, I have found out about them through job sites, social media posts, other newsletters and so on, so I have no more information on them than publicly available and you should refer to those listed in the job ad.
No or minimum experience necessary
Founding Team Member (student, part-time) at National Social Impact (Mental Health) Accelerator), New York City, US
Some experience (2-5 years) necessary
Postdoctoral Researcher, Harvard University, US
Intervention Coordinator, Sangath, India - by 15 October
Psychosocial Learning Officer, UNHCR - by 20 October
5+ years of experience necessary
Mental Health and Psychosocial Services Coordinator, Médecins du Monde, Beirut, Lebanon
Senior Research Manager, Wellcome Trust, London, United Kingdom - by 12 October
Research Manager, Wellcome Trust, London, United Kingdom - by 12 October
Mental Health Specialist, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland - by 20 October
MHPSS Director, The MHPSS Collaborative, Coppenhagen, Denmark - by 24 October
Trustee, United for Global Mental Health (volunteer position) - by 1 November
Global roster of Consultant on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Expert, UNICEF - by 1 November
Program Director, Sangath, India - by 10 November
Resources in Global Mental Health
A section for various opportunities, databanks, information sources that may prove helpful.
Countdown Global Mental Health 2030 - Hosted at the website of United for Global Mental Health, the dashboard Countdown Global Mental Health 2030 is collaborative work with UNICEF, WHO, Global Mental Health Peer Network, and the Lancet. It displays mental health-related indicators from the global reports of UN agencies and other international organizations and is a free and quick resource for advocates, researchers, campaigners, policy-makes and just plain curious people. Data will be fed in through Tableau when it is published, starting with WHO Mental Health Atlas 2020 (just out - read about it in Publications below). For now, the dashboard is focusing on the mental health of children and adolescents, giving a previously neglected area a well-deserved boost, but we will probably see the adult indicators soon enough. And it is a great thing to play with and learn from. Go on, try it.
Kokoro list of charities supporting mental health for all - UK-based organization Kokoro has put together this handy list of local organizations around the world which focus on adovicacy, direct support, financing and growing networks of like-minded people in-country. Organized by continent, this should be your place of call if you are looking for partners from a particular country to connect with, and we can only hope that the list will keep growing.
Latest Publications in Global Mental Health
The selection of publications ultimately reflects my personal knowledge and preferences, but I have no intended bias. Feel free to send me publications you consider interesting or that you would like to be featured.
Covid crisis dramatically worsened global mental health, study finds - reported by other news outlets around the world as well, this was when global mental health made it to the news. The meta-analysis of 48 publications on prevalence of major depressive disorder and anxiety after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic was carried out by a truly global group of researchers and was published in the Lancet. The study is unique in estimating the current possible numbers globally of major depressive disorders (246 million) and anxiety disorders (374 million) and the increase potentially caused by the pandemic. As the news article points out, women were approximately twice as affected as men in these extra cases, reflecting the increased disruption in livelihoods, parenting and care. This increase in mental disorder burden was the greatest in the 10-24 years old group. Which leads me to the next publication of interest…
UNICEF The State of the World’S Children 2021 Report - aptly titled “On My Mind – Promoting, protecting and caring for children’s mental health”, the report paints a grim picture. Restrictive measures around the pandemic such as school closures affected young people all over the world. Coupled with other large burdens on mental health like poverty, humanitarian crises, abuse at home and in peer groups, this eventually means that on average over 21 countries, 1 in 5 children and adolescents reported often feeling depressed or having little interest in things - a mental health crisis that needs our attention. The report is worth reading in full. It makes sensible recommendations: improve parenting and caregiving through training and support. Make sure schools are nurturing. Integrate mental health care in social, educational and health settings, making it normal, ubiquitous, accepted, because stigma affects young people profoundly. And get more data to let us know how we are doing and where we need to step up. But act now, without delay, because the young people need the support, the listening and the action.
World Mental Health Atlas 2020 - the Atlas is now out, and at a most timely moment, too. Following the revised Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan, originally covering 2013-2020 and now extended to 2030, the Atlas includes also the new and revised targets and indicators. The results of reporting are reviewed by WHO region. Of course, reporting is done by country focal points; rather than a limitation, it is an interesting opportunity to see how countries prioritize and deal with mental health policy and planning. For example, what is a country plan without targets and indicators to measure how well it’s going? However,
Of the 167 countries that responded, 23% stated that indicators were not available, while 22% stated that indicators were available but not used, 32% stated that indicators were used for some/a few components and 23% stated that indicators were used for most or all components (Table 2.1.5).
Other numbers show that introducing mental health legislation in countries has stalled (p. 38) and research output is being outpaced as percentage of total health research (p. 23). So are we improving or backsliding? There is no clear answer. The pandemic has thrown a wrench in reporting, but it will also be a driving force for a major shift if we can seize the moment and advocate insistently not to allow this year’s World Mental Health Day motto “Mental health in an unequal world” to stand much longer. Maybe it is too early for WHO to introduce social determinants of health measurement in the Mental Health Atlas. But the Countdown 2030 (see above in Resources) will give us a good place to observe this shift.
Two comments in the Lancet on the occasion of World Mental Health Day lay out two paths towards reaching equity in mental health - not separate, but complementary. Kola et al. look at what should be done within the health sector, such as focusing on young people and people with severe mental illness as a priority (especially in the pandemic), prioritising low-resource settings as a setup for intervention development, boosting investment and pushing back stigma. I especially like this part:
Recovery from the pandemic will require us to calibrate a different value and belief structure that will require a whole-of-society and whole-of-person approach to human wellbeing…
The authors also emphasize dealing with social and economic determinants of health, which is taken up by Pathare et al. That comment lines up five clear areas of social justice policy to lay the understructure of environments which enable good mental health: safer societies for women and children, protection from minority and racialized exclusion, rejecting hostile immigration environments (the UK may be codifier of this phrase, but by no means the only perpetrator), and providing decent livelihood and wages and safe early childhood. The authors hit the nail on the head:
Scaling up quality mental health services is crucial but in the current social context is only a partial solution to problems that require more systemic intervention to the body politic.
I was surprised that the outright mention of political governance is absent from both comments. In almost all countries, funding for mental health is a political and not administrative decision; same with structural changes to economic and legislative policies. Frequent change of government, although properly democratic, means no continuity between decisions and no incentives for vote-counters to commence ponderous work on a stigmatized subject. I would welcome a study - or the opportunity to do one! - looking at the non-linear trajectories of mental health reforms in countries around the world, full of stops and starts even in high-income countries. Making mental health a campaign promise later fulfilled is a true pressure point for advocacy.
*Social view image courtesy of Pexels.
The Language Corner will return in the next, possibly shorter edition…