MENTAL HEALTH BULLETIN

Jamaica - PAHO technical cooperation mission on mental health
 
Jamaica, 11-15 February. - As part of a comprehensive mental health intervention package to support Jamaica in the decentralization of mental health services, doctors Benedetto Saraceno and Claudina Cayetano led capacity building activities with mental health stakeholders, based on the needs identified during a mission in June 2018.  Activities sought to: a) sensitize health professionals and key stakeholders to strategic interventions in order to strengthen mental health services and facilitate deinstitutionalization; b) identify key facilitators and actions necessary for sustainable deinstitutionalization. The primary partner in Jamaica is the Ministry of Health. 

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Guatemala - Alcohol and road safety training workshops
 
Guatemala City, February and March 2019. - The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) Alcohol and Road Safety project, which was implemented with the financial support of OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), included four training workshops.

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Guyana - Organization of mental health services and mhGAP training
 
Georgetown, 3-6 March. - As part of an ongoing technical cooperation project focused on supporting the Ministry of Public Health of Guyana in the transformation of its mental health services, PAHO conducted a technical mission in March. Among other activities, this mission assessed the implementation of the mhGAP in the delivery of mental health services at the primary health care level, discussed actions to improve the mental health surveillance system, conducted a training of trainers on the use of the mhGAP, and reviewed progress in the reorganization of mental health services and the transition to a community-based model.

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WHO - Annual mental health regional advisors' meeting organized by the World Health Organization

Geneva, 11-15 March. - Dr. Claudina Cayetano, PAHO/WHO Mental Health Advisor, represented the Region of Americas at the Annual Regional Advisors' Meeting organized by WHO's Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse. The meeting took place in Geneva, Switzerland, and was coordinated by Dr. Dévora Kestel, Director of the Department.

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Guatemala - Comprehensive alcohol regulation in public health in the member states of the Central American Integration System (SICA)
 
Guatemala City, March 19-20. - The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) and the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN, for its acronym in Spanish) organized a workshop to discuss the situation of alcohol consumption in Central America and its impact on health and development. Policies to reduce the problems associated with the harmful use of alcohol currently in force in these countries were also presented.

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Peru - Community mental health in the development agenda
 
Lima, March 11. - The report on "Healing minds, saving lives – movement for community mental health care in Peru", which analyzes innovations in financing, organization and provision of mental health services in the country, was presented at an international conference attended by Andrea Bruni, PAHO/WHO Subregional Advisor on Mental Health; Livia Benavides, Manager of the World Bank’s Human Development Program for Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru; Neptalí Santillán, Vice Minister of Public Health; Luis Varela, Cayetano Heredia Peruvian University’s Rector; and the Mental Health Executive Director, Yuri Cutipé.

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PAHO and APTA commence collaborative project on rehabilitation
 
Washington D.C., January 24. - The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) has started a new exciting collaboration project with the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA).  The official start date was January 24. Over the course of this year, APTA will be supporting PAHO on the development of a Regional Rehabilitation Report, to be published in December 2019. 
 
The report will seek to identify the current status of rehabilitation services within the different subregions of the Americas. In addition to the report, APTA will be supporting collection of information for the final report of the PAHO Regional Action Plan on Disabilities and Rehabilitation and the development of follow-up actions.  APTA will also be learning about PAHO’s experience in health emergency response in order to inform their own members.
 

Mental health issues account for more than a third of total disability in the Region yet just 2% of country’s health budgets go towards preventing and treating these conditions, according to a new PAHO report.

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On Wednesday, 10 April 2019, PAHO  held the webinar  "Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD): Epidemiology and Diagnosis" that  provided an overview of what are fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, current diagnostic criteria, clinical signs, and on how to identify people who could be affected. It will also covered the prevalence of: alcohol use among childbearing age and pregnant women globally; Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and FASD among general and special sub-populations such as children in care, correctional populations, special education populations, specialized clinical populations, and Aboriginal populations in comparison with the global prevalence of FASD in the general population, as well as predicted estimates for Latin America and the Caribbean.

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