The Gairdner Foundation announced the 2019 Canada Gairdner Award laureates, recognising Goa and Boston-based Vikram Patel, Ph.D., F. Med.Sci., for his research career raising the global profile of mental health problems.
Prof Patel has been awarded 2019 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award for his world-leading research in global mental health, generating knowledge on the burden and determinants of mental health problems in low-and-middle-income countries and pioneering approaches for the prevention and treatment of mental health in low-resource settings.
Each year seven Canada Gairdner Awards are presented to honour the world's most significant biomedical and global health researchers. The John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award recognizes a contribution to health in the developing world. Laureates receive a $100,000 cash honorarium and will be formally presented with their awards on October 24, 2019, at the annual Canada Gairdner Awards Gala in Toronto.
"This prize is a recognition of the tremendous effort of innovators in low resource settings to transform our understanding of mental health problems and to innovate ways in which we can address these problems in contexts where there are very few resources," said Prof Vikram Patel.
Prof Patel has dedicated his research career to raising the global profile of mental health problems through: epidemiological research demonstrating the burden of mental disorders in low and middle-income countries, their strong association with poverty and with other public health priorities, such as HIV and child growth and development; and intervention research in which he has applied a systematic approach to the design, delivery and evaluation of contextually appropriate psychosocial interventions provided by lay and community health providers.
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This has included the primary care treatment of depression, anxiety and alcohol use disorders, the community-based care of people with schizophrenia and autism, and the prevention and treatment of adolescent mental health problems through school-based interventions.
Much of his work has been done in partnership with Sangath, an Indian NGO he Co-founded in 1996. Sangath is one of India's leading community-based research organizations which won the MacArthur Foundation International Prize for Creative & Effective Institutions in 2008 and the WHO Public Health Champion of India prize in 2016.
The Impact: As recently as 10 years ago, it was difficult to even imagine mental health problems being considered as a global health priority; today, the situation is radically different with considerable attention from a diverse range of global health stakeholders, backed by resources, being focused on mental health, particularly in disadvantaged and low resourced contexts.
Patel's work and leadership have played a critical role in making this happen. His research has challenged many of the myths surrounding mental health problems in the global context, demonstrating that these problems are universal forms of human suffering; that there is a vicious cycle of deprivation and poor mental health; that mental health problems profoundly affect the physical health and well-being of affected persons; that psychosocial interventions can be effectively delivered by widely available and affordable community-based providers; and that the human rights of people with mental health problems to access quality care and to a life with dignity are global concerns.
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