GLOBAL HEALTH SEMINAR SERIES 2021-2022
Wednesday, January 12, 2022 / 12:00pm – 1:00 pm
Two years into a historic pandemic, mental health—already a leading cause of disability worldwide—has gained even greater importance as a challenge for global health. In this seminar, we will explore the past, present, and future of global mental health through an interdisciplinary dialogue between a social anthropologist and a psychiatric epidemiologist. Professor Pinto will explore the history of psychiatry in South Asia, including diverse approaches to diagnosing, healing, and therapeutics, as well as efforts to consider the relationship between social conditions and mental health. She will discuss how late-colonial and early post-Independence psychiatry in India turned to the “community” and examined social contexts as part of biologically oriented understandings of mental illness. Professor Dev will describe recent initiatives to make mental health care accessible in low- and middle-income countries, including India, focusing on the importance of task-sharing in settings where there is a dearth of mental health professionals to facilitate the scale-up of community-based mental health services.