Partnership for Mental Health Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

描述（由申请人提供）：我们建议开发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。该中心旨在建立一个基础设施，以发展撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）的精神卫生（MH）研究能力，并通过在该地区开展创新的公共卫生相关MH研究来推进全球MH科学。该中心将与政府部门和非政府组织合作，将六个急需重大改善其卫生系统的国家的机构聚集在一起：尼日利亚、南非、加纳、肯尼亚、塞拉利昂和利比里亚，以及来自美国和英国机构的杰出研究人员。它将由一个由国际知名研究人员组成的多学科小组组成，他们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优先程度低、人力资源极度缺乏、社区意识差、对心理健康状况认识不足和治疗不足有关的各种需求。 这些目标包括：（1）将服务提供者、政策制定者和具有全球心理健康专业知识的研究人员聚集在一起，建立一个撒哈拉以南地区心理健康研究中心，该中心将成为一个支持该地区研究能力建设和创新性心理健康服务发展的区域中心，初期重点是扩大对患有最严重的心理健康问题之一的人的服务：（2）制定和实施有针对性的培训和指导方案，在广泛的精神卫生专业人员中建立精神卫生研究能力，以期为创新精神卫生研究创造和支持足够数量的专家，以满足该地区的精神卫生需求。

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.