Global Mental Health Program at Columbia University

Global Mental Health Program at Columbia University

The Global Mental Health Program at Columbia University engages in education and training, research, and advocacy initiatives to promote mental health and reduce the burden of mental illness across the globe.

Mission statement

The Global Mental Health Program (GMHP) at Columbia University Medical Center works to promote mental health, alleviate the burden of mental illness, and eliminate the stigma surrounding behavioral disorders. The three facets of the GMHP are education and training, research, and advocacy. Through our involvement with mental health advocacy and the arts, we foresee a future in which mental illness loses its stigma and is recognized as a serious global issue that requires expanded efforts in prevention and treatment. Committed to training and dissemination of evidence based treatments, we envision a world in which effective prevention and treatment interventions are accessible to all populations. Our advocacy, education and training are aligned with our research efforts to ensure that our initiatives are evidence based and/or evidence generating. We are especially committed to building capacity for mental health research, care, and understanding in low- resource communities.

Summary of relevant work

The GMHP provides master’s level courses in global mental health, supports various global practica opportunities for early-career researchers, hosts monthly Global Mental Health Seminars at Columbia University, and offers fellowship positions, including the Global Mental Health Scholars Program and the T32 Research Fellowship. The Columbia GMHP also collaborates with many global health organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Africa Mental Health Foundation, in order to conduct research and expand knowledge that will help guide global endeavors to advocate for mental health.

We work with the WHO to host the Global Clinical Practice Network, which engages over 13,000 mental health professionals from around the world in research related to mental illness diagnoses, particularly the ICD-11. The GMHP at Columbia University uses the arts and social media as a tool to advocate, educate, understand, and raise awareness about mental illness with the goal of connecting across cultures to reduce societal stigma.

Our Artist-In-Residence program supports individuals whose work powerfully and passionately integrates mental health themes into their artistic careers.

Five On Friday, the weekly GMHP blog written by Director Kathleen M. Pike, brings global mental health topics to the forefront of our daily conversations and breaks the silence often associated with mental illness.

Key partners

Funders

Details

Approach(es)
Detection and diagnosis
Prevention and promotion
Task sharing
Training, education and capacity building
Disorder(s)
All mental health conditions
Region(s)
Africa
Asia
Central America and the Caribbean
Europe
Middle East
North America
Oceania
South America
Population(s)
Adults
Children and adolescents
Communicable diseases (e.g. HIV/AIDS, TB)
Disability
Families and carers
Humanitarian and conflict health
Maternal and neonatal health
Minority populations
Non-communicable diseases (e.g. cancer, diabetes, stroke)
Older adults
Setting(s)
Community
Primary care
School
Specialist care
Workplace
Country(s)
United States