Asia Pacific Research For Mental Health Services Capacity Building

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The goal of ASPIRE-MHS research capacity building component is to build capacity in the implementation and utilization of mental health services research in the Asia-Pacific region. The capacity building activities will build implementation science research capacity of researchers and policy makers from four Asia and Pacific nations with limited or moderately developed mental health services who suffer high burdens of mental disorders due to poverty and long histories of political and other forms of interpersonal violence. APSIRE-MHS will develop a collaborative training program for Viet Nam, Timor-Leste (East Timor), Bougainville/Papua New Guinea and the scale-up research country Myanmar. Each country's trainees will be mentored by a pair of global mental health researchers from high-income countries, with one team member based at an Australian university and one team member based at a US university, in order to expand the base of academic resources, funding opportunities, and collaborations for the LMIC country trainees. During the five-year sponsored program, teams of researchers from each country will undertake a multi-step process of training in needs assessment to develop Learning Health Care Systems (LCHS) (Year 2), developing conceptual knowledge and skills for creation of tools to identify, implement, and sustain innovative evidence-based mental health integrated in health care and educational institutions (Year 3-4), disseminating these skills and tools to colleagues in home country institutions (Year 5), and applying for funding to expand implementation science research (Year 4-5). Core competencies will include principles of implementation science; conceptual models for LCHS and Dynamic Sustainable Frameworks, development of research and quality improvement tools to study the pathway of “science to service” for integrating new interventions into health systems, DIME (Design, Implement, Monitor and Evaluate) methodology, health policy research, basics of health economics, and ethics in health systems research, in addition to professional development in writing peer-reviewed publications, policy briefs and white papers, and research grants. Capacity building activities will also build the ability of policy and decision makers in ASPIRE-MHS countries to use mental health services research to inform policy and program decisions through online resources that will be sustainable beyond the U19, and through training of the researchers in methods and best practices for engaging policy and decision makers as related to mental health services (i.e., `bring research into practice'). To facilitate this, these online resources will share a platform for policy makers, practitioners and researchers to discuss major gaps in knowledge and possibility for research uptake from multiple perspectives. The capacity building program contributes to the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health, Goal E to “build human resource capacity” by creating an Asia Pacific regional partnership for research, education, and training, and Goal F to “transform health-system and policy responses” by strengthening mental health programming in international aid through partnership with USAID.