On March 20th, we held a seminar titled “Monitoring Population-level Mental Health and Well-being: Countdown Global Mental Health 2030” with Dr. Shekhar Saxena. This seminar provided the conceptual background for monitoring population level mental health and wellbeing followed by the methodology developed in the Countdown Global Mental Health 2030, an initiative of a consortium including the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as partner agencies. The relevance of the Countdown approach for mental health policy and future directions for the initiative was discussed.
Dr. Shekhar Saxena is Professor of the Practice of Global Mental Health at the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. A psychiatrist by training, he worked at WHO, Geneva for 20 years till 2018; the last 8 years as the director of mental health and substance abuse. He was the technical lead within WHO for the Mental Health Action Plan adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2013. Author of more than 350 academic papers, his expertise includes providing evidence-based advice and technical assistance to policy makers, businesses and civil society on mental health. He is an active member of the GlobalMentalHealth@Harvard initiative.
WATCH THE SEMINARSpeakers’ remarks are based on their own scholarship and experience. As such, they speak for themselves, not for Harvard.