IGHD Collaborations

We often work in small-scale partnerships to build capacity for addressing local health problems with social roots, supporting tangible interventions that are helping to sustain health and livelihoods. Equally, over the years, members of the Institute have consistently played leading roles in the shaping of international policy in our respective specialist areas (Social Sciences Research and Gender Committee; Tropical Diseases Research; WHO HIV/AIDS Department; the Psychosocial Working Group; Global Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Network). Our approach favours the building of local capacity towards sustainable development.

ReBUILD: Research for Building Pro-Poor Health Systems in the aftermath of conflict

is a research partnership funded by the UK Department for International Development. Together with our , we are working in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

TropEd Network

The Network for Education in International Health (tropEd) is a consortium of 26 institutions of Higher Education across 17 countries that offer 145 different postgraduate modules concerning International and Global Health. Through its activities that enable the mobility of learners and lecturers, the exchange of interdisciplinary experiences and the establishment of common standards in education and training for International and Global health, the tropEd network facilitates improved and sustainable health services and development with a particular focus on the needs of disadvantaged populations. The Institute for Global Health and Development at Queen Margaret University is one of ten original member institutions in the tropEd network and the only member institution in the UK.

Two routes are possible:

1) you can register as a ‘home’ student with QMU to follow the tropEd Masters, which requires you to a) complete the four core modules in semester 1 for the PG Certificate Global Health and b) complete the taught course requirement by taking a combination of advanced modules with other tropEd higher education institutions (see the list at ) before c) doing the dissertation at 17�Թ��. For further information, ask to speak to the IGHD tropEd Representative.

2) as a postgraduate student following any of the Masters programmes at IGHD, course participants can opt (subject to the approval of the Course Committee) to take selected advanced modules (equivalent to QMU elective modules) from the tropEd menu (see the list at) and successfully complete these in any of the tropEd member institutions which are part of the association.

The Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Network (MHPSS)

Launched in January 2010, and co-founded by our colleague, Dr Alison Strang, the QMU-based network promotes better mental health and community support in humanitarian emergencies via an online platform that allows people and organisations to share resources, build knowledge and develop the skills required to respond to the impact of conflict, disaster and chronic adversity.

Individuals, families and entire communities suffer serious emotional and social consequences from exposure to conflict, disaster and chronic hardships resulting from poverty or epidemics like HIV/AIDS. In such humanitarian settings, it is a priority to improve the psychosocial well-being of children and adults and to address serious mental health problems. The field of mental health and psychosocial support in emergencies is relatively young and rapidly evolving. There is much promising practice in the field, but there is still a gap in the use of existing research evidence to guide services, and also a lack of research on the broad range of interventions required to address the many problems that result in suffering for affected people. With large and small-scale emergencies spread across the globe, it is often difficult for practitioners and policy-makers responding to crises on the ground to have access to the best resources and advice from their peers or researchers in other parts of the world.

As a response to this pressing need, the MHPSS Network established an interactive , a platform for colleagues to meet online, engage in discussion through interest groups, and exchange technical resources through a digital library. The network has received visitors from 177 countries and over 3000 cities and towns, who spent a total of over 3000 hours with resources and information on the site.

Anyone from around the world with an interest in mental health and psychosocial support can join the Network. This includes mental health professionals, policy-makers, community volunteers, spiritual leaders, media personnel, academics and of course people from affected communities.

Other Collaborations

Collaborations with Academic Institutions:

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), University of Liverpool, UK
College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS), Sierra Leone
Makerere University School of Public Health (MUSPH), Uganda
Biomedical Research and Training Institute (BRTI), Zimbabwe
Cambodia Development Resources Institute (CDRI), Cambodia
Colombia University, USA
Harvard University, USA
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Oxford University, UK
The University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Institute of Social Sciences, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey
Institute of Social Sciences, Atılım University, Ankara, Turkey
University of Edinburgh, UK
University of Leeds, UK
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Bangladesh