The University of Virginia Center for Global Health Equity (CGHE) announced awards for two UVA professors working on mental health in Cambodia and disability rights in Kenya. Both projects address key challenges to the health and well-being of individuals around the world and are recipients of the CGHE’s 2022 Richard and Nancy Guerrant Global Health Equity Professors. The award enables expanded opportunities for UVA faculty members of all levels and disciplines to actively engage in global health equity initiatives.  

 “We were awe-struck by the exceptional quality and diversity of faculty members’ applications who represent engagement across a broad range of disciplines and target global health disparities through incredibly novel approaches,” said Rebecca Dillingham, CGHE director.

The awardees, who will each receive funding in the amount of $10,000 per year for three years, include Amanda Nguyen, Assistant Professor, School of Education and Human Development, “Pilot Evaluation of the Livelihoods Recovery Program for Rural Cambodians with Serious Mental Illness”; and Kathryn Quissell, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences: “Advancing Equity for Children with Disabilities in Rural Kenya”.   

Amanda Nguyen’s proposed project builds on a partnership cultivated over the past five years with a dedicated team of local psychologists working to address serious mental illness in Cambodia. “I’m honored to receive the award, and so excited about the work that we’ll be able to accomplish,” she said adding that over the next three years she will develop and evaluate a Livelihoods Recovery program, which will provide job training, small grants, and psychosocial support to recovering patients. “I’m thrilled to see this long-term collaboration effort coming together in such a promising way that will not only support my Cambodian colleagues to undertake this critical work, but will also provide multiple UVA students with opportunities for cross-cultural learning over the next few years.”  

Kathryn Quissel’s project will look to increase access to health care and schools, as well as improve the quality of services received, for children with disabilities, while learning what strategies have the most impact. “Stigma and discrimination are fundamental causes of inequity,” she said. These causes are also intersectional and function at multiple levels in societies, making interventions complex. “The Guerrant Award will support my organizational partners in Kilifi County, Kenya (www.kupenda.org) in their advocacy work to ensure the implementation of a local disability rights law, as well as my research into stigma measurement, mitigation, social movements, and impacts on policy.”

In keeping with the interdisciplinary nature of CGHE, the award supports UVA faculty members from any School with the intention of creating a community of global health equity practice. 

Since 2001, UVA’s Center for Global Health Equity (CGHE) has sustained a commitment to health for all. Committed to values of parity, reciprocity, and humility, CGHE strives to advance global health equity through direct research, institutional capacity-building in resource-constrained settings, and, especially, support for UVA faculty members’ and students’ participation in meaningful and ethical global health research and engagement.    

It is anticipated that all Guerrant Global Health Equity Professor awardees will foster new opportunities for UVA students within the context of their research projects. CGHE will provide additional funding to promote student engagement with these faculty initiatives.