The Gairdner Foundation today announced the 2019 Canada Gairdner Award laureates, recognising Goa and Boston-based Vikram Patel, Ph.D., F. Med.Sci., for his research career raising the global profile of mental health problems. Prof Patel has been awarded the 2019 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award for his world-leading research in global mental health, generating knowledge on the burden and determinants of mental health problems in low-and middle-income countries and pioneering approaches for the prevention and treatment of mental health in low-resource settings.

Each year seven Canada Gairdner Awards are presented to honour the world’s most significant biomedical and global health researchers. The John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award recognizes a contribution to health in the developing world. Laureates receive a $100,000 cash honorarium and will be formally presented with their awards on October 24, 2019 at the annual Canada Gairdner Awards Gala in Toronto.

“This prize is a recognition of the tremendous effort of innovators in low resource settings to transform our understanding of mental health problems and to innovate ways in which we can address these problems in contexts where there are very few resources,” said Prof. Vikram Patel.

Prof. Patel is the Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Professor, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health; Honorary Professor of Global Mental Health, Centre for Global Mental Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Adjunct Professor, Centre for Chronic Conditions and Injuries, Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi; Co-founder, Sangath, India

Prof. Patel has dedicated his research career to raising the global profile of mental health problems through: epidemiological research demonstrating the burden of mental disorders in low and middle-income countries, their strong association with poverty and with other public health priorities, such as HIV and child growth and development; and intervention research in which he has applied a systematic approach to the design, delivery and evaluation of contextually appropriate psychosocial interventions provided by lay and community health providers. This has included the primary care treatment of depression, anxiety and alcohol use disorders, the community-based care of people with schizophrenia and autism, and the prevention and treatment of adolescent mental health problems through school-based interventions.