Vikram Patel

Patel was educated at the University of Mumbai, (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, 1987)[1] the University of Oxford (Master of Science, 1989)[2] and the University of London where he was awarded a PhD in 1997 for research on mental disorders in Harare.[1][3]

Patel’s work spans a wide variety of topics and disciplines including, but not limited to, epidemiology, medicine, psychology, disability, neurological disease, Non-communicable diseases, public health, substance abuse, economic evaluation, and implementation research. His primary interest, however, is in global mental health, specifically the improved treatment and care of people with mental disorders around the globe. His work has been financially supported by the London-based biomedical research charity The Wellcome Trust since 1996 where he has served as Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Science since 2005.[13]

He currently serves on four Government of India committees: the Mental Health Policy Group (which drafted India’s first national mental health policy, launched on October 10, 2014); the National Rural Health Mission ASHA Mentoring Group; the National Human Rights Commission Core Committee on Health; and the Technical Advisory Group of the Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram.[14] He was Founding and Joint Director of the Centre for Global Mental Health, a partner of the LSHTM with Kings Health Partners, until handing over the role to Professor Ricardo Araya in October 2014. He is currently Joint Director of the Centre for Chronic Conditions and Injuries at the Public Health Foundation of India located in New Delhi.[13] He serves on three WHO Committees, which include: Mental Health; Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health; and EMRO Mental Health. And he served as co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health of the National Institute for Mental Health.[10]

In 1997, he and several local colleagues founded Sangath, a mental health research NGO located in Goa that works with the LSHTM on multiple projects focusing on child development, adolescent health, and mental health. In 2008, Sangath won the MacArthur Foundation’s International Prize for Creative and Effective Institutions and is now using the grant money to pioneer various ways in which task-sharing in mental health care can be properly distributed between primary care professionals and community based workers.[15] Sangath is now ranked amongst India's leading public health research institutions.[14]

Patel has also served as editor for several major medical publications including the influential Lancet series on global mental health in 2007 and 2011 (as well as universal health care in India again in 2011), the PLoS Medicine series on packages of care for mental disorders in 2009, and the series on Global Mental Health Practices in 2012 and onwards. He was also editor of the International Journal of Epidemiology series on global mental health and psychiatric epidemiology in 2014. And as of recent, he is the editor of two Oxford University Press textbooks on global mental health titled “Global Mental Health: Principles and Practice” and “Global Mental Health Trials”.

In 2007, he played a key role in setting up the new Movement for Global Mental Health, a global coalition of professionals and civilian volunteers working together to assist those affected by mental illness, by helping to promote as editor the 2011 Lancet series’ Call to Action. The movement has since amassed over 10,000 individuals working with over 200 institutions around the world.[16] And as co-chair of the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health, Patel has recently led efforts to identify promising research opportunities and priorities in global mental health.

In 2003, he wrote the book “Where There Is No Psychiatrist,” a mental health care manual primarily used in developing countries by non-specialist health workers and volunteers.[13] It has since been translated into fifteen languages.[10]

Patel is based in Boston, New Delhi, and Goa.