Development of a Mental Health Focused PhD Clinical Pscyhology Program in Vietnam

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The ultimate goal of this competing renewal for our Developmental ICOHRTA (D43-TW05805) project is to permanently increase research capacity in the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam (Vietnam) in regards to: (a) developing culturally-appropriate, research-based prevention and intervention treatments for Vietnamese children's mental health problems, in particular in regards to depression, suicide, and anxiety disorders, and conduct problems including aggression and youth violence, and substance abuse; (b) planning, designing, and conducting clinical trials to empirically evaluate these treatments, as well as to address secondary questions (e.g., determining mediators of treatment effects); and (c) disseminating the results of this research so as to favorably impact on mental health service provision. In addition, it is expected that success in achieving these goals will broaden our field's understanding of human behavior, through the collaborative sharing of cultural perspectives among project faculty and trainees. Towards this end, our first Specific Aim is, over five years, to: (a) provide six Vietnamese researchers with training in mental health intervention and prevention research at the Vanderbilt Clinical Sciences program (two as graduate Ph.D. students, four as two year post-doctoral trainees) as well as (b) provide training to approximately ten Vietnamese "Program Fellows" via two week summer intensive seminars in Vietnam (which will include providing consultation on their research). To ensure that increased research capacity is sustainable over the long-term, our second Specific Aim is to support the development of a child-focused, research-oriented Ph.D. clinical psychology program at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi; the individuals receiving training at Vanderbilt will serve as core faculty in this new program. Our third Specific Aim is, through the collaborations facilitated by this ICOHRTA project, to contribute to the broadening of psychology as a field, by expanding its cultural base. The collaborative relationships with the Vietnamese researchers that are a central element of the program will provide the U.S. researchers with long-term opportunities to share and learn the perspective on mental health and human behavior of researchers from a significantly different culture. This will increase our appreciation and understanding of the significance of culture as a moderator of relations among psychological constructs, enriching our own research as well as that of our Vietnamese colleagues.