The Global Health Institute Presents:
Anthropological Perspectives on Global Mental Health in India
With Guest Speaker
Dr. Lesley Jo Weaver, MPH, PhD
Director, Global Health Program
Associate Professor, Department of Global Studies
University of Oregon
India is often characterized as having one of the world’s largest “mental health gaps”—meaning there is a severe shortage of mental healthcare providers available to address common disorders such as depression and anxiety in the general population. In this talk, Weaver critically examines interventions that have been developed to address this need. Using original data from her qualitative research among women in New Delhi and Mysuru, Weaver explores the promises and pitfalls of a task-sharing paradigm based in biomedical psychiatry, and considers what alternative approaches might be available to address the mental health gap in India.
Speaker Bio:
Lesley Jo Weaver is an academic expert in medical anthropology, global health, mental health, race, gender, chronic diseases, and food insecurity. At the University of Oregon, Weaver is an associate professor of Global Studies and director of the Global Health program. Her research focuses, broadly, on the social production of health and illness. In India, Weaver’s National Science Foundation-supported research explores how the day-to-day management of type 2 diabetes shapes North Indian women’s abilities to participate in social roles considered appropriate for women of their age, class, and caste groups. She also studies how South Indian women explain and understand distress, and what they do when they are so stressed that they need to seek help. In Brazil, Weaver’s work has examined how food insecurity influences physical and mental wellbeing. In addition to this fieldwork, Weaver co-hosts and co-produces the American Anthropological Association-sponsored podcast Speaking of Race, a longstanding program that explores the history and present-day reverberations of scientific racism around the world.
In collaboration with Global Health programs, the Global Health Speaker Series presents students, alumni, faculty and guest speakers showcasing the multidisciplinary aspects of global health work and research.
