What have we done so far?
The project already started. Its official launching took place on July 10th, 2013 at the Initial Summit meeting in Sao Paulo. This activity has been funded by Paulo Menezes through a grant from the University of Sao Paulo.
We have made progress in several directions:
- Columbia University’s Department of Psychiatry collaborates with LATIN-MH in the training of the next genera- tion of US scientists who will focus on Global Mental Health implementation research. The NIMH has funded a research fellowship program (T32MH096724) led by and Drs Maria Oquendo and Milton Wainberg seeking to train new U.S. investigators who will focus on devising strategies to close the enormous mental health gap ob- served in LMIC and beyond, using treatments that are evidence based and can make a difference in the lives of those afflicted by mental illness. LATIN-MH has been instrumental in identifying mentors for research fellows from among his many collaborators in Peru and Brazil. Fellows are now actively working in close collaboration with faculty at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, developing approaches to implementation of mental health services in public health community primary care settings. Our first collaborative Fellow (Dr Pamela Scorza) will be working in Peru as part of this collaboration.
- Professor Araya is collaborating in three additional seed projects in Guatemala, Colombia, and Peru funded by Canada Grand Mental Health Challenges. These new projects seek to strengthen a similar line of research.
- A scientific conference was delivered by the Senior Faculty of our hub attending the initial Summit.
- We conducted lectures at NorthWestern University, University of Sao Paulo, and we participated in a joint conference in Santiago, Chile, in collaboration with RedesAmericas in September 2013.
- We named a research project coordinator, Julieta Quayle, a clinical psychologist with a doctorate in this field. Also we have appointed a capacity building coordinator, Barbara Bonini, who is a registered nurse with a PhD..
- The Executive Committee of the Central hub met, and several researchers involved with the research component have held regular weekly meetings via web in order to develop the intervention being tested. Substantial progress was made in developing an application in collaboration with Northwestern University. Mark Beagle and Marya Corden are the two leading experts in this field and are working on this initiative.
- In December 2014 took place another meeting of the Hub, in São Paulo, to prepare the pilot study.
- In the first half of 2015 we conducted pilot studies in Brazil and Peru.
- In June 2015 there was another meeting of the Hub to evaluate the results of the pilot study and organize the start of the RCT. Was held also the Latin America Treatment and Innovation Network in Mental Health Symposium, which presentations are available for download.
- We are currently preparing for starting the trial (RCT) in Brazil and Peru in 2016.