Key Information
About the content
Public Mental Health is the application of the principles of medicine and social science to prevent the occurrence of mental and behavioral disorders and to promote mental health of the population. This course illustrates the principles of public health applied to depressive disorder, including principles of epidemiology, transcultural psychiatry, health services research, and prevention. It is predicted that by 2020 depressive disorder will be the most important cause of disease burden in the entire world! Every human being suffers from feeling depressed at some point or other, but only about one fifth of the population will experience an episode of depressive disorder over the course of their lives. This course illuminates the public health approach to disease, and the particular complexities of applying this approach to mental disorders, using depression as the exemplar.
Syllabus
- Week 1 - Overview
Welcome to Major Depression in the Population: A Public Health Approach. Let's take a few moments to introduce the course before we dive into our first lessons. - Week 1 - What is Major Depression and Why Is It Important? The Burden of Depressive Disorder in the Population
This week, we will be focusing on the definition of major depression and the methods that we use for measuring its effect on populations. - Week 2 - Depression in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Closer Look at Maternal Depression
This week we will be covering depression from a global public health perspective. - Week 3 - Basic Concepts of Epidemiology as Applied to Depression
This week we take advantage of what we know about major depressive disorder to examine major epidemiologic research designs, including the case control design, the cohort design, and the study of diseases in time and space. - Week 4 - The Search for Etiologic Clues
This week the focus is on possible causes for depressive disorder, including inheritance, stress, social life, work life, and the evolution of modern living. - Week 5 - Unmet Need for Care, Barriers, and Programs to Improve Access
In this module, we discuss unmet need for treatment and treatment seeking and present a public health view of depression treatment. - Week 6 - Final Assignment
Instructors
William Eaton, PhD
Professor, Mental Health
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Wietse A. Tol, PhD
Ali & Rose Kawi Assistant Professor, Mental Health
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Ramin Mojtabai, MD
Associate Professor, Mental Health
Bloomberg School of Public Health
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