The long range goal of SHARE (the South Asian Hub for Advocacy, Research & Education on mental health) is to establish a collaborative network of institutions in South Asia, building on the historic linkages between them, to carry out and to utilize research that answers policy relevant questions related to reducing the treatment gap for mental disorders in the region. Within the five year time-frame of the proposed program, we seek to achieve the following key objectives to arrive at our overall goal: A. To establish the Hub by setting up a primary administrative core in the Indian Institute of Public Health, Hyderabad. A partner core will be simultaneously set up in the Institute of Psychiatry, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The two cores will form the twin 'hearts' of a larger network of academic, research, user/carer and policy institutions spread in six countries of the South Asian region, and strategic partners in the UK and the USA. B. To contribute to the reduction in the treatment gap in South Asia through a concerted program of research on task-shifting and research capacity building by: building the evidence base on the role of peers in the delivery of mental health care by developing and evaluating the impact of a peer-led psychological treatment for maternal depression on maternal and child health outcomes; carrying out shared research projects, on themes related to reducing the treatment gap, agreed by consensus with other regional Hubs; offering diverse opportunities for research capacity development to suit the needs of researchers across the career development pathway, building the capacity to carry out research and to utilize evidence to influence policy and practice; and promoting exchange of technical expertise with international partners. C. To contribute more broadly to improving mental health care globally by: disseminating evidence to partners in policy & programs regionally and globally; collaborating with other Hubs in the shared research projects component; advocating to and participating in global initiatives thereby influencing policy and practice related to mental health care in low and middle income countries; and promoting research to examine how cultural and health systems differences impact the applicability of interventions across regions.
SHARE will build on the historic relationships between international and South Asian institutions to establish a network of engaged and enabled institutions in the region; a cohort of trained researchers at a range of levels of career development; established mental health research sites in the two largest countries of the region; and established links of researchers with policy makers and civil society for translation of research.
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