Global mental health intervention research and mass trauma

Susan Meffert,¹ Solvig Ekblad<sup>2

1</sup>Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; ²Karolinska Institutet, Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics (LIME), Cultural Medicine Unit, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: The impact of mass trauma on mental health and the treatment of resulting disorders has been a major focus of global mental health work since the inauguration of the field. Descriptive studies in the 1990s provided convincing evidence of the importance of addressing global mental health needs in the aftermath of mass trauma. Nonetheless, despite calls to move ahead with interventional research, few studies have tested the effectiveness of the treatments for survivors of mass trauma. In this study, we use a translational science model to review the status of intervention research for adult survivors of mass trauma with the goal of identifying promising treatments, and presenting a logic model for using available data in a manner that is sensitive to community needs, and integrating with existing systems for capacity building.

Keywords: global mental health, trauma, disaster, PTSD