Monday, September 21, 2020, 11:30 AM – 1 PM EDT

Carol Worthman, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology Emerita

“Is There a Mental Health Equivalent of Clean Water?”

The last 150 years have brought tremendous gains in public health and biomedicine that have improved well-being and survival around the globe, yet mental health has lagged behind. While public health advances in sanitation and clean water have improved countless lives, the mental health equivalent of clean water has remained elusive. The present pandemic has revealed fault lines in this and other cultural logics where existing conditions have failed the COVID stress test not just on health but also on economy, education, politics, and environment. Stark differences in morbidity and mortality between and within populations clearly highlight the physical and mental toll of flagrant inequity, systemic discrimination, and marginalizaton. Urgent lessons from the evidence raise a call to seize the opportunity for long-needed change. Carol will unpack the rationale and options for making “no health without mental health” an orienting framework for processes to transform policy, practice, and values, indeed, health science itself