Scaling-up Stepped Care for Women’s Mental Health in Primary Care in an LMIC
Project Site Name: Prisma Research Center
Project Site Location: Dushanbe and Sughd, Tajikistan
UIC CGH Faculty Contact: Stevan Weine, MD
Project/Activity Summary:
This project advances task sharing by testing the effectiveness and implementation of a stepped care model for LMICs. It uses nurses and mental health peers to treat depression and potential co-occurring anxiety among women in primary care. To improve implementation, this study examines the impact of clinic implementation teams in readying the clinics and service providers. The project assesses the effectiveness of the stepped care model with 420 women who have depression and potential co-occurring anxiety, recruited from 12 primary care clinics in Tajikistan, compared with standard of care plus provision of healthy lifestyle materials, with another 210 women recruited from 6 primary care clinics. The project also assesses whether a clinic implementation team moderates women’s reduction in depression post-intervention, as well as clinic-level and provider-level moderators. Finally, this project establishes a national mental health research network that focuses on improving the standard of mental health care and access to services by building mental health implementation research capacity. The knowledge produced through this study will inform stepped care models for mental health in LMICs such as Tajikistan and in low-resource settings in the United States. Project collaborators include the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), New York University, the University of Utah, and the Prisma Research Center of Tajikistan.
Addressing Mental Illness and Physical Comorbidities in Migrants and Their Families
Project Site Name: Prisma Research Center and University of Prishtina
Project Site Location: Dushanbe, Tajikistan and Prishtina, Kosovo
UIC CGH Faculty Contact: Stevan Weine, MD
Project/Activity Summary:
This project addresses the adverse impact of migration on chronic non-communicable diseases (NCD), specifically in the area of mental illness and physical comorbidities. The overall aim of is to build research capacity in low- and middle-income countries with a focus on migration in Eastern Europe and Central Asia from two of the world’s highest migrant sending countries, Kosovo and Tajikistan. This research training program trains early- to mid-career postdoctoral researchers from Kosovo and Tajikistan in multidisciplinary approaches to NCD research through training at UIC. Additionally, this project builds research capacity at partner institutions by supporting the UIC-mentored research projects and by training an estimated 250 participants per year (both live and on-line) who are either academics, educators, practitioners, policymakers, or stakeholders on pertinent research methods, issues, and infrastructure. The project also develops a diverse network of researchers from the U.S., Kosovo, and Tajikistan dedicated to sharing knowledge and skills through convening annual meetings, trainings, and dissemination. The research training program focuses on the impact of migration upon chronic non-communicable diseases in the areas of mental illness (e.g. depression, anxiety, PTSD, and substance abuse) and risks for physical comorbidities (e.g. cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and occupational diseases). Project partners include the Prisma Research Center in Tajikistan and the University of Prishtina in Kosovo.