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Greetings!
Happy New Year! No doubt 2012 will be as exciting and action-packed as 2011. Our calendar is already full of interesting speakers and talks. We anticipate an expansion of our education offerings and courses. And our research will continue in an effort to make important contributions to the field of global health.
To kick off 2012, we are spotlighting one of the most pressing and under-recognized areas of global health: mental health. Worldwide, suicide is the third leading cause of death among people age 15-30. In the U.S., there are 300 million people and 50,000 psychiatrists. By comparison, India has 1.2 billion people and only 3,000 psychiatrists. DGHI faculty are researching various aspects of the global mental health crisis. Read about their efforts and how you can get involved.
Finally, many thanks to the dozens of you who contributed to DGHI's first online fundraising campaign. Thanks to you, we exceeded our goal by raising more than $4,100 to support our students in the field. They - and we - are grateful for your support.
Until next week,
Geelea Seaford and Everyone at DGHI
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Spotlight on Global Mental Health
The Duke Global Health Institute launched a special initiative on global mental health in 2009. Search DGHI's research database for current mental health projects under way. New Research FindingsBipolar and Substance Use Disorders Linked With Risky Sexual Behavior DGHI faculty member Christina Meade is lead author on a new study published in Journal of AIDS and Behavior on the link between bipolar and substance use disorders and risky sexual behavior. In the 15-month study among 61 patients with both disorders, Meade and her research team found that people who experience more and longer manic episodes were more likely to engage in sexual risk behavior. Also, more cocaine use increased sexual risk  among study participants. The findings also show no link between depression and greater sexual risk. These findings highlight the need for more substance abuse treatment and targeted HIV prevention services among bipolar patients with active or recurring mania. Somatic Symptoms Linked With Depression, Anxiety Wei Jiang, a Duke physician and member of DGHI's mental health working group, is senior author of a new study with Chinese collaborators that suggest physical, or somatic, symptoms among Chinese patients seeking health care in general hospitals in China are strongly linked with depression and anxiety, and rarely associated with their underlying physical diseases. In the study of more than 2,400 clinical patients from more than a dozen general hospitals in Guangzhou, China, authors found that depression and anxiety were several times higher among patients with moderate to high physical symptoms. Nineteen percent self-reported moderate to high physical symptoms with 15% of the study population experiencing depression, 6% anxiety and 5% experiencing both. The only physical disease that was associated with higher somatic complaints was digestive system disease. The study highlights the importance of managing depression and anxiety in Chinese patients who seek help in a non-mental health setting. Upcoming Seminars on Global Mental HealthThis month, the Duke Global Health Institute is excited to feature the work of five visiting faculty members and researchers specializing in global mental health. The five public seminars are co-sponsored by DGHI, the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, and Duke Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavior Sciences. Mark your calendars and plan to attend! Helen Verdeli: Testing Psychotherapy in Low and Middle Income Country Settings Date: January 11, 2012 at 4:00pm to 5:00pm Location: 124 Trent Hall Brandon Kohrt: Mental Health and Suicide in Nepal Date: January 17, 2012 at 4:00pm to 5:00pm Location: 124 Trent Hall Eve Puffer: Community-based Intervention to Promote Adolescent Mental Health, Reduce HIV Risk Date: January 18, 2012 at 12:00pm to 1:00pm Location: Breedlove Conference Room, Perkins Library Wietse Tol: Child Mental Health in Humanitarian Settings Date: January 24, 2012 at 12:00pm to 1:00pm Location: Breedlove Conference Room, Perkins Library Nancy Liu: Bridging the Mental Health Gap Date: January 26, 2012 at 12:00pm to 1:00pm Location: 319 Sociology-Psychology Devon Hinton: PTSD in Refugee PopulationsDate: February 2, 2012 at 2:00pm to 3:00 Location: TBA
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Grant Supports Innovation in Health Care Delivery
DGHI faculty member Krishna Udayakumar, assistant professor of medicine and global health, has been awarded a three-year $300,000 grant from the Aetna Foundation, Inc. for development of the International Partnership for Innovative Healthcare Delivery (IPIHD). The organization is housed within Duke and aims to support innovators and entrepreneurs in health care delivery scale-up and replicate successful delivery solutions that improve affordable access to quality care. It also aims to support health care systems implement innovative health care delivery programs.
The IPIHD will also operate a mentoring program so that industry executives can help innovators to build their businesses, host an annual investor-innovator conference to help capitalize the sub-sector, work with governments and regulators to implement innovative delivery programs, and share and spread knowledge through an online portal.
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New CHPIR Research on HIV Prevention, Sexual Violence and Health Care Needs
Sara LeGrand, a research scholar at the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research (CHPIR), has been awarded $25,000 from the Catawba Care Coalition to complete a community health needs assessment over the next six months to identify unmet health care needs of residents in York County, SC and Charlotte, NC. The needs assessment is part of a Community Health Center Planning Grant awarded to the AIDS service organization Catawba Care from the Bureau of Primary Care.
Kimberly Walker, associate director of CHPIR, has been awarded a $99,908 to work with community-based partners to implement an intensive teen pregnancy and HIV/STD prevention program. The Teen Outreach Program (TOP) aims to effectively reduce and delay the behaviors which put one at risk for teen pregnancy and HIV/STDs.
Rachel Whetten, international sector director at CHPIR, has been awarded a 9-month $5,423 grant from the TearFund to study the link between sexual abuse and addiction among women in rehab centers and their impact on physical, psychological and social well-being. The study will scale up the range and quality of women's services provided by faith-based organizations based on increased awareness of sexual violence. 
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Gary Bennett Aims to Tackle Obesity by Restructuring Policy, Reorganizing Health Care System
 Printed in SSRI's GIST from the Mill, Page 19
Gary Bennett, associate professor in psychology and neuroscience, wants to save the world. Since his days at Duke University as a student to his years as a faculty member, Bennett has captured the idealism he feels is necessary to work in his profession. His passion to help socially disadvantaged communities began at Duke when Bennett was a clinical psychology grad student working in the transplant rotation. He kept seeing the same profile from rural North Carolina, socially disadvantaged and obese.
"What struck me was that so many of the problems that these patients were suffering with were problems that we
could prevent and moreover, we could probably prevent at the population level, by restructuring policy and reorganizing the health care system," he said. This realization changed the way Bennett thought about his education and what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. "I think about that often because I think a lot of times we have folks in the U.S. who are struggling with things we could ultimately prevent if we paid more attention," Bennett said.
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Global Health Opportunities
Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Associate, Duke Global Health Institute
Register/Abstracts: Global Health & Innovation Conference, New Haven, CT
Register/Abstracts: Global Surgery Conference, Salt Lake City, UT
Save the Date: July 18-21, 2012, International Conference on Global Health, Washington, D.C.
Faculty
CDC: Incidence of Community Associated Influenza, Respiratory Infections in U.S. - due Jan. 9
NIH Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) (R25) - due Jan. 20
Maternal Nutrition and Pre-pregnancy Obesity: Effects on Mothers, Infants and Children (R01) - due Feb. 5
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