Partnership for Mental Health Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

描述（由申请人提供）：我们建议建立一个名为撒哈拉以南非洲精神卫生发展伙伴关系（PaM-D）的中心。该中心的目的是建立一个基础设施，以发展撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）的精神卫生研究能力，并通过在该区域开展与公共卫生相关的创新精神卫生研究，推进全球精神卫生科学。该中心将与政府部门和非政府组织合作，将尼日利亚、南非、加纳、肯尼亚、塞拉利昂和利比里亚这六个急需对其卫生系统进行重大改进的国家的机构与来自美国和英国机构的杰出研究人员联合起来。它将由一个由国际知名研究人员组成的多学科小组组成，这些研究人员对非洲复杂和特殊的心理健康状况的直接经验将用于解决与心理健康政策不优先、人力资源极度缺乏、社区认识差、对心理健康状况认识不足和对这些状况治疗不足有关的各种需求。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to develop a hub by the name Partnership for Mental Health Development In Sub-Saharan Africa (PaM-D). The hub is aimed at creating an infrastructure to develop mental health (MH) research capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and to advance global MH science by conducting innovative public health-relevant MH research in the region. The hub will bring together institutions in six countries in great need for major improvements in their health systems: Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Liberia with outstanding researchers from institutions in the US and UK, in partnership with government departments and non-governmental organizations. It will consist of a multidisciplinary team of internationally renowned researchers whose direct experience about the complex and peculiar mental health situations in Africa will be channeled towards addressing the diverse needs associated with low policy priority for mental health, extreme paucity of human resources, poor community awareness, low recognition of mental health conditions and under-treatment of those conditions. The aims include: (1) bringing together service providers, policy makers, and researchers with expertise in global MH to create a Sub-Saharan MH Research Hub that will establish itself as a regional center supporting research capacity-building and innovative MH service development in the region, focusing, initially, on expanding service for persons suffering from one of the most disabling mental health problems: psychosis and (2) developing and implementing targeted programs of training and mentoring that build mental health research capacity in a broad range of mental health professionals with a view to creating and supporting a critical mass of experts for innovative mental health research to address the region's mental health needs.