Global Mental Health ― Anthropological Perspectives

This book uses engaging narratives to illustrate that mental illnesses are not only problems individuals face but problems that need to be understood and treated globally at the social and cultural levels.

Brandon Kohrt is a medical anthropologist and psychiatrist. He is Assistant Professor of Global Health and Psychiatry at Duke University. He conducts global mental health research focusing on populations affected by war-related trauma and chronic stressors of poverty, discrimination, and lack of access to healthcare and education. He has worked in Nepal for 16 years using a biocultural developmental perspective integrating epidemiology, cultural anthropology, ethnopsychology, and neuroendocrinology. With Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO) Nepal, he designed and evaluated psychosocial reintegration packages for child soldiers in Nepal. He currently works with The Carter Center Mental Health Liberia Program developing anti-stigma campaigns and family psychoeducation programs. He was a Laughlin Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists and a John Spiegel Fellow of the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture (SSPC). Kohrt has contributed to numerous documentary films including Returned: Child Soldiers of Nepal’s Maoist Army. Emily Mendenhall is an assistant professor of global health in the Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA) Program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She has conducted cross-cultural research on the syndemics of poverty, depression, and diabetes among vulnerable populations in urban India, Kenya, South Africa, and United States. She published this research as a book titled Syndemic Suffering: Social Distress, Depression, and Diabetes among Mexican Immigrant Women, and she has published peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Social Science & Medicine, Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, Medical Anthropology, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, PLoS One, and Global Health Action. Her most recent research examines the convergence of multiple social and health problems among those seeking medical care at a public hospital clinic buttressing the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. She also leads a non-profit organization that develops books on global health inequality.