Global Mental Health Research (GMHR) encompass a multidisciplinary research and action initiative, based at the Mental Health and Society program and the Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill University, aimed at fostering research, capacity building and knowledge transfer in the field of global mental health, with the ultimate objective of maximizing the GMHR capacity for innovation in low- and middle-income countries and contribute to effective knowledge transfer in global mental health research at local, regional, and global levels [http://www.mcgill.ca/tcpsych/research/ global-mental-health-research]

The GMHR initiative links McGill faculty and students with colleagues and partners across Canada and countries of the Latin American and Caribbean, Central and South Asia and sub Saharan Africa regions. It aims at establishing partnerships with research teams in low and middle-income countries, and developing a GMHR agenda of joint collaborative projects. The following are currently active projects configuring the GMHR agenda:

• Toward a new architecture for global mental health: a Latin American and Caribbean regional project (DMHUI in collaboration with Social Studies of Medicine and the Institute of Health and Social Policy, with the University of Chile, University of West Indies, and State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

• Tackling maternal psychosocial distress among marginalized indigenous women in Guatemala: a community-based approach (with the Instituto de Nutrición de Centro América y Panamá – INCAP – Guatemala and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK).

• Countering youth and urban violence with a community engagement cultural therapy program in Kingston, Jamaica (with the University of West Indies and the Institute of Family and Community Psychiatry, Jewish General Hospital).

• Defeating the Giant with a Slingshot: Testing a new technology to fight the global trauma epidemic (with the Center for Victims of Torture – CVICT, Kathmandu, Nepal).

• Global Health Research Capacity Strengthening (GHR-CAPS) Program (with McGill University in partnership with the Université de Montréal, Université du Québec au Montréal, and Université Laval) [webpage: www.pifrsm-ghrcaps.org].

• Vulnerability and adaptation of indigenous health systems to climate change. The Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change research program (IHACC) (www.ihacc.ca) has created a multinational interdisciplinary team to develop an understanding of the vulnerability of remote Indigenous health systems to climate change. This collaborative initiative is led by the Department of Geography, McGill University; in partnership with the DHRC, the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH), Lima, Perú; and Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.

Duncan Pedersen is currently an Associate Professor, Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and leads the Global Mental Health Research initiative based at the Mental Health and Society program, DMHUI [www.mcgill.ca/
tcpsych/research/global-mental-health-research]. A physician, trained in public health, social epidemiology and medical anthropology, has an extensive research experience in Latin America, mostly amongst indigenous peoples and the urban poor in countries of the Andean region (Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru), the Amazon basin and Northeast Brazil. More recently, he has extended his research in global mental health to Guatemala, Mexico, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Nepal. His current interests include cross-cultural, ethnographic and epidemiological research on violence and mental health outcomes, where the issues of traumatic memory and trauma-related disorders, resilience, healing and coping strategies remain his most prominent concerns. Between 1992 and 2002, he was lecturer at the Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Pedersen has written numerous articles and book chapters in global mental health, medical anthropology, indigenous health, traditional medicine, stigma, racism, and social exclusion; political violence, trauma, and mental health outcomes. From 2000 to 2010, he served as Senior Editor for the renowned international journal Social Science & Medicine and is a member of the Editorial Board of SSM, Anthropology & Medicine, Transcultural Psychiatry and Salud Colectiva.

Visiting Scholar and Researcher in Medical Anthropology, Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBa), Salvador, Brazil
Honorary Professor, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH), Lima, Peru.
Member, Academia Nacional de Medicina, Lima, Peru.
Distinguished mental health scholar and visiting researcher, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Visiting professor, Mental health, Centre for Victims of Torture, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Consuelo Errazuriz, Research Coordinator
Nicole D’Souza, PhD Candidate
Ram Prasad Sapkota, PhD Candidate
Fahimeh Mianji, PhD Candidate
Anne Marie Chomat, PhD Candidate
Sakiko Yamaguchi, PhD Candidate
William Affleck, PhD Candidate
Tanya Lee, Master’s Candidate
Carol Zavaleta, PhD Candidate

Pedersen, D. (2015). Rethinking trauma as a global challenge. In: Meryam Schouler-Ocak (editor). Trauma and Migration – Cultural Factors in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Traumatized Immigrants. (in print). Switzerland: Springer.

Pedersen, D. and Kienzler, H. (2015). Exploring pathways of distress and mental disorders: The case of Quechua-speaking populations in the Peruvian Andes. (Chapter) In: Danton Hinton and Byron Good (Eds.) Culture and PTSD. Pennsylvania: Penn University Press.

Kirmayer, L.J. and Pedersen, D. (2014). Toward a new architecture for global mental health. Transcultural Psychiatry, 51(6): 759–776.

Pedersen, D. (2014). Vertical trauma-focussed interventions vs. broader horizontal psychosocial interventions. Intervention: Journal of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Conflict Affected Areas, 12(2): 278-282.

Pedersen, D. and Kienzler, H. (2014). Mental health and illness in war and conflict areas. (Chapter) In: Samuel Okpaku (Ed.) Global Mental Health: Essential Concepts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mora-Rios, J., Bautista-Aguilar, N., Natera, G., Pedersen, D. (2013) Adaptación cultural de instrumentos de medida sobre estigma y enfermedad mental en la Ciudad de México. Salud Mental; 36: 9-18.

Pedersen D. & Errazuriz, C. (2013). Replanteando la violencia política, el trauma y sus consecuencias como un desafío a la salud global. In: Bustamante I., Rivera, M., L. Matos (Eds.) Violencia y Trauma en el Perú: Resultados y Desafíos. Lima: UPCH.

Kienzler, H., Pedersen, D. (2012). Strange but common bedfellows: The relationship between humanitarians and the military in developing psychosocial interventions for civilian populations affected by armed conflict. Transcultural Psychiatry, 49 (3-4): 492- 518.

Robillard, C., Delfin, M. & Pedersen, D. (2012). Strengthening Collective Memories & Resilience in The Peruvian Andes. In: J. Reading, N. Marsden, R. Link, D. Kurbanova and M. Kelly (eds.), Global Indigenous Health Research Symposium Report. Victoria, B.C.: Centre for Aboriginal Health Research, pp. 51-56.

Pedersen, D. (2012). Vers un paradigme unificateur en santé mondiale. In: J.C. Suárez-Herrera et M. J. Blain (eds.). La recherche en santé mondiale: perspectives socio- anthropologiques. Sherbrooke: ACFAS 2011. Actes du colloque # 652, pp. 45-62.

Fernando, S., Pedersen, D. and Weerackody, C. (2010). Mental Health in Sri Lanka (Letter to the Editor). The Lancet, 374:89.

Afana, A.H., Pedersen, D., Ronsbo, H., and Kirmayer, L.J. (2010). Endurance is to be shown at the first blow: social representations and reactions to traumatic experiences in the Gaza Strip. Traumatology, 16 (2): 43-64.

Pedersen, D., Kienzler, H. and Gamarra, J. (2010). Llaki and Ñakary: idioms of distress and suffering among the highland Quechua in the Peruvian Andes. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry (DOI 10.1007/s11013-010-9173-z).