The field of global mental health exists in large part because of a substantial disparity: low and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the Global South comprise over 80% of the global population but have less than 20% of mental health service resources and an estimated 90% of people living in LMICs do not receive adequate care. As the field has emerged, challenges in how to appropriately conduct public mental health research in LMIC contexts have surfaced. Such challenges require the appropriate application of epidemiologic methods in order to accurately measure and describe mental health and substance use problems in LMIC and evaluate and implement intervention approaches. Epidemiologic methods to be discussed in this course include: complex survey designs to measure psychiatric disorder prevalence in humanitarian and emergency settings; validation of mental health screening tools in the absence of a gold standard criterion among culturally diverse populations; cohort and case control global mental health studies; evaluation of mental health intervention effectiveness using experimental and non-experimental designs; novel methods for assessing clinical competency and intervention fidelity of lay mental health providers in LMIC; and implementation science tools, designs, and analysis approaches for translating evidence-based interventions into practice in LMIC.
