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Karl Menninger, MD Plenary: Pamela Y. Collins, MD, MPH: Grand Challenges for Child Mental Health
Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability worldwide. Globally, suicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescents. Even in settings where infectious diseases remain a predominant contributor to mortality, mental disorders disproportionately disable children and young adults. As many as half of all mental health disorders start by age 14, but most cases go unrecognized and untreated, with serious consequences for mental health throughout life. Pamela Y. Collins, MD, MPH, identifies gaps and opportunities in global mental health research focused on children and adolescents. Using the framework of the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health, she highlights opportunities for intersectoral intervention that can promote the mental health of young people.
Pamela Y. Collins, MD, MPH, is Associate Director for Special Populations and Director of the Office for Research on Disparities & Global Mental Health and the Office of Rural Mental Health Research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Prior to joining NIMH, she was a professor in the departments of epidemiology and psychiatry at Columbia University where she conducted research on the mental health aspects of the AIDS epidemic, and through her research, worked to improve access to HIV prevention for people with severe mental illness as well as access to mental health care services for people with HIV domestically and internationally.
Dr. Collins’ research has focused on the HIV prevention needs of ethnic minority women with severe mental illnesses and the contribution of social stigma related to mental illness and ethnicity to women’s HIV risk in the United States. Internationally, she has conducted and evaluated training of healthcare providers in mental health, HIV/AIDS transmission, prevention, and counseling in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Collins has served as a consultant to the Directorate of Mental Health in South Africa and as a member of its Task Team for Policy Guidelines on HIV/AIDS in Psychiatric Institutions. She serves on the Advisory Group for the Movement for Global Mental Health and is a member of the World Health Organization’s Mental Health Gap Action Programme Forum. With colleagues at NIMH, Dr. Collins directs the NIMH Collaborative Hubs for International Research on Mental Health. She was one of the editors of the 2011 Lancet series on Global Mental Health, she is a leader of the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health initiative, and recently led the development of the 2013 PLoS Medicine Policy Forum series on global perspectives for integrating mental health.
The Karl Menninger, MD Plenary is supported by Ronald K. Filippi, MD, in honor of his mentor, Karl Menninger, MD.