ABOUT THE EVENT

More than 700,000 people die by suicide each year globally and more than 75% of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries where mental health resources are scarce. This panel will present their diverse perspectives and practical experiences of fostering meaningful community engagement in suicide prevention research specific to intervention selection, development, adaptation, and implementation. We will then engage the audience in a thoughtful discussion on how to best conduct community-partnered research in suicide prevention and other research areas that are highly sensitive in nature. While the panel will center on mental health, the lessons discussed will be broadly applicable to other global health research methods, making this discussion highly relevant for DGHI and the wider global health community.

SPEAKERS

Brandon Knettel, PhD (moderator) is an Associate Professor of Nursing and Global Health and Associate Director of the Duke Center for Global Mental Health. He is a licensed psychologist specializing in mental health intervention development and capacity strengthening, with focus areas that include health behavior, care engagement, stigma reduction, suicide prevention, nurse-led models of care, and mental health support for people living with HIV. Dr. Knettel’s international projects are primarily located in Moshi, Tanzania, where he completed a NIMH Career Development Award to develop IDEAS for Hope, a brief telehealth counseling intervention to prevent suicide and improve care engagement among people living with HIV.

Ali Giusto, PhD is a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor at Florida International University's Department of Psychology, where she designs and evaluates scalable, community-embedded family and caregiver mental health interventions, with a focus on fathers, to promote youth well-being. Her work spans Kenya and South Florida, centering implementation and intervention science and community partnerships to advance quality care and access.

Dr. Kim Madundo is a Psychiatrist, Lecturer, and Head of Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre. He is one of only four psychiatrists practising in Northern Tanzania and has an interest in psychological trauma, depression and suicide prevention, and developing interventions targeting these mental health challenges among young adults. He has served as an investigator on multiple local and cross-country research studies to investigate suicidality and depression, and harmful alcohol use. He is now a Fogarty fellow, co-mentored by researchers at Muhimbili, Boston and Duke universities, where he aims to use a transdiagnostic approach to investigate post-traumatic stress and co-morbid mental disorders among adults with HIV. Throughout his career, he has mentored PhD level nurses, medical students, and junior nurses.

Marisa Marraccini, PhD is an Associate Professor of School Psychology in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She specializes in promoting student mental health and preventing youth suicide. After completing her PhD in school psychology at the University of Rhode Island, she sought out advanced training in suicide assessment research through a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. With funding from the AFSP, National Institute of Mental Health, and MQ Mental Health Foundation, Dr. Marraccini has been leading research focused on developing and testing novel approaches to youth suicide prevention, prioritizing perspectives of individuals with lived experience throughout each phase of research.

Emma Mew, PhD is a psychiatric epidemiologist and Postdoctoral Associate at the DGHI Center for Global Mental Health. Her research focuses on the development and evaluation of community-based interventions to prevent adolescent suicide in resource-constrained environments, with experience partnering with communities in the Pacific Islands and East Africa. Dr. Mew earned her PhD in Epidemiology from Yale University and holds an MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Toronto.

This is a hybrid event with both in-person and remote attendance options. Attendance in person is encouraged. Lunch will be available.