Ethnic Disadvantage and Psychiatric Morbidity

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a new application for an NIMH K01 Mentored Scientist Development Award entitled "Ethnic Disadvantage and Psychiatric Morbidity". The candidate's primary career interest is in the study of sociocultural processes underlying mental health disparities. The candidate plans a career that combines anthropological and epidemiological approaches in cross-national comparative studies of psychopathology. He currently holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and has had two years of post-graduate training in psychiatric epidemiology. However, he has no experience outside of the classroom either analyzing epidemiological data or working on a project that is carrying out an epidemiological survey. Although he has carried out fieldwork outside of the U.S (in Japan), he has no experience in cross-national comparative analysis. Given the complex multidisciplinary requirements of rigorous cross-cultural research on psychiatric disorders, he needs additional training and mentored research experience to complete his development as an independent scientist.Mentored Research Plan: Ethnic disadvantage and psychopathology is a logical starting point for a career of integrating anthropology and psychiatric epidemiology. The study of ethnicity is a particular theoretical strength of anthropology and disadvantaged ethnic groups are likely to have elevated risk of mental disorders. To develop the skills to analyze social determinants of psychiatric morbidity, support is sought for formal coursework and training in quantitative methods, and international health research. Cross-national comparisons will be developed through a mentored process of data analysis and model development that builds from ethnic comparisons in the US context to incorporate data from multiple countries. Analyses will use data from three epidemiological studies that employ comparable methods: 1) The National Comorbidity Survey (NCS), 2) The National Comorbidity Survey Follow-up and Replication (NCS-2 and NCS-R), and 3) The World Mental Health 2000 (WMH2000) study. Mentored research apprenticeship in this rich substantive area will yield publications and advance the goals of a career combining anthropological and epidemiological approaches to psychiatric morbidity in international health.