Reverse Innovation in Mental Health: Review and Recommendations

The global health community has strived to attain equitable partnerships in global mental health. To this end, there has been a growing interest in Reverse Innovation. This is defined as the development of an initiative in a Low- or Middle-Income Country setting that is then adopted by a Western counterpart or High-Income Country setting. While often referenced in other branches of medicine, Reverse Innovation remains especially underexplored in mental health care. This paper presents a commentary and literature review examining the status quo on Reverse Innovation in mental health. Barriers to knowledge exchange between Low- and Middle-Income, and High-Income country partners are discussed, and potential solutions are presented

Reverse Innovation in Mental Health: Review and Recommendations

The global health community has strived to attain equitable partnerships in global mental health. To this end, there has been a growing interest in Reverse Innovation. This is defined as the development of an initiative in a Low- or Middle-Income Country setting that is then adopted by a Western counterpart or High-Income Country setting. While often referenced in other branches of medicine, Reverse Innovation remains especially underexplored in mental health care. This paper presents a commentary and literature review examining the status quo on Reverse Innovation in mental health. Barriers to knowledge exchange between Low- and Middle-Income, and High-Income country partners are discussed, and potential solutions are presented

Real-Time Communication : Creating a Path to COVID-19 Public Health Activism in Adolescents Using Social Media

The COVID-19 pandemic and related public health efforts limiting in-person social interactions present unique challenges to adolescents. Social media, which is widely used by adolescents, presents an opportunity to counteract these challenges and promote adolescent health and public health activism. However, public health organizations and officials underuse social media to communicate with adolescents. Using well-established risk communication strategies and insights from adolescent development and human-computer interaction literature, we identify current efforts and gaps, and propose recommendations to advance the use of social media risk communication for adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic and future disasters.Medicine, Faculty ofNon UBCPsychiatry, Department ofReviewedFacult

A Brain Capital Grand Strategy: Toward Economic Reimagination

Current brain research, innovation, regulatory, and funding systems are artificially siloed, creating boundaries in our understanding of the brain based on constructs such as aging, mental health, and/or neurology, when these systems are all inextricably integral. Grand strategy provides a broad framework that helps to guide all elements of a major, long-term project. There are converging global trends resulting from the COVID pandemic compelling a Brain Capital Grand Strategy: widespread appreciation of the rise in brain health issues (e.g., increase prevalence of mental illness and high rates of persons with age-related cognitive impairment contracting COVID), increased automation, job loss and underemployment, radical restructuring of health systems, rapid consumer adoption and acceptance of digital and remote solutions, and recognition of the need for economic reimagination. If we respond constructively to this crisis, the COVID pandemic could catalyze institutional change and a better social contract. Our current economy is indeed a Brain Economy—one where most new jobs demand cognitive, emotional, and social, not manual, skills, and where innovation is a tangible “deliverable” of employee productivity. With increased automation, our global economy increasingly places a premium on cerebral, brain-based skills that make us human, such as self-control, emotional intelligence, creativity, compassion, altruism, systems thinking, collective intelligence, and cognitive flexibility [1]. Investments in brain health and brain skills are critical for post-COVID economic renewal, reimagination, and long-term economic resilience. Broadly, brain health encompasses emotional, behavioral, and cognitive strengths across the life span. Compromised brain health greatly increases the risk of disorders across the life span (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance misuse, dementias, and neurocognitive disorders) and hinders the achievement of each individual’s full human potential. The concept of Brain Capital encompasses both brain health and brain skills as contributors to this Brain Economy. A Brain Capital Grand Strategy is urgently needed. Such a plan would be a first-ever strategic alignment across diverse public and private entities to structure and track investments that protect brain health and produce brain skills. This paper discusses the parameters of this Grand Strategy including: a Brain Capital Investment Plan, examination of Brain Capital from an in-all-policies approach, and a Brain Capital Index. Underlying such efforts is the notion that Brain Capital can amplify existing recovery and growth efforts while helping to build long-term global economic capacity that promotes an equitable and sustainable brain health future. We recommend establishing an action taskforce comprised of local, state, federal, and global leaders in these key areas to further advance this work

A Brain Capital Grand Strategy: toward economic reimagination

‘I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, my knowledge of the actions of great people, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs, and a continual study of antiquity.’ The Prince, Machiavell

A Brain Capital Grand Strategy: toward economic reimagination.

‘I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, my knowledge of the actions of great people, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs, and a continual study of antiquity.’ The Prince, Machiavell