Columbia-WHO Center for Global Mental Health

Promoting Mental Health and Reducing the Burden of Mental Illness Around the Globe

by Vanisa Senesathith (Nita)

Mental health as public health

Mental health is public health. My 2020 summer research internship was focusing on the intersection of reproductive health and mental health. Researching mental health services for LGBTQ+ youth was also related to the stigma surrounding mental health and identity. I learned that the mental health of an individual not only impacts the individual, but also affects the families and community that the individual is living with. The government also plays a role in an individual's ability to live with mental health through policies and health system strengthening. This relationship reflects public health as a field, which tackles issues through a systematic view. Though I mainly focused on finding and identifying community mental health training, the research I conducted still highlighted how the government plays a role in the provision of mental health services to youth in the country.

About Columbia-WHO CENter for global Mental health

Credit: CUGMHP.org

“The Global Mental Health Programs Consortium is based at Columbia University in New York City. We champion better mental health worldwide through innovative advocacy, research, and training. The Global Mental Health Program was founded in 2012 by Professor Kathleen Pike in response to the overwhelming burden of disease of mental illness. It transitioned to a formalized consortium of programs in 2018.” (CUGMHP.org, n.d.)

My day-to-day responsibilities

I was a 2020 remote summer research intern working under the supervision of Dr. Sabrina Hermosilla. She is a research investigator at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. Dr. Hermosilla applies epidemiologic principles and methods to study social determinants of mental health and psychosocial outcomes in complex global settings (University of Michigan, n.d.).

I worked on a research project to help Roots of Health, a reproductive health organization in the Philippines, find mental health training and interventions for their staff to provide to LGBTQ+ youth in their communities. I did both academic and grey literature searches for training that have been done around the globe to see which ones could potentially be implemented in the Philippines. The trainings ranged from a film screening and discussion to a group counseling session. In the end, I drafted a summary page for each of the top three trainings I found, which included a film discussion, a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy group session, and a suicide prevention workshop. Roots of Health would then draft grant proposals and find potential donors to help implement the training.

In addition, I was able to learn about different global mental health careers through the weekly Brown Bag Lunch and Professional Development seminars. We also facilitated and discussed an article related to global mental health weekly. I also got a chance as an intern to take part in the CUGMHP Instagram Takeover Day to educate people more about mental health in Laos, my home country.

Lessons Learned

Through this internship, I learned so much about global mental health, developed my interests, and met amazing professionals working in the field of public health. There are many careers and paths within the field of global health. I met people who worked as clinical psychologists, researchers, policy officers, consultants, NGO executive directors, and more. I met a variety of people who had earned MPHs, but who applied that learning in so many different ways, which highlighted how interdisciplinary the field of public health is. This reminds me of principles of liberal arts education and throughout my summer, I saw how public health is a holistic field and could make me see many dimensions to a problem. I appreciate that public health is a very holistic field looking at an issue from many different angles. I also first thought research is mainly done in academia, but through this internship, I learned about applied research and how it plays a role in global public health. Particularly, the project that I was doing was for an NGO and I saw how research guided an NGO in implementing their public health projects.

Vanisa Senesathith (Nita)

Vanisa Senesathith (Nita) is a senior at Macalester College majoring in psychology with a CGH concentration. As someone who comes from Laos, a country where the stigma surrounding mental health is still high, she wants to work on educating and raising awareness about mental health there. In addition, she also plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology to develop accessible mental health interventions such as online or community-based interventions for people in Laos, particularly for children and their families.

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