Affiliation:
New York University Shanghai
Short bio:
Brian J. Hall is a tenured Full Professor of Global Public Health and the Founding Director of the Center for Global Health Equity at NYU Shanghai. Professor Hall earned his PhD in Clinical Health Psychology from Kent State University and completed his clinical internship at the Medical University of South Carolina as a NIMH T32 predoctoral traumatic stress fellow. He specialized in epidemiological methods, public mental health, and Global Mental Health during a two-year NIMH T32 Fellowship in Psychiatric Epidemiology in the Department of Mental Health, at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHBSPH). In 2013 he moved full-time to China to focus on infectious disease epidemiology and migrant health through a Fogarty Global Health Fellowship, hosted by the Center for Migrant Health Policy, Sun Yat-sen University School of Public Health and the University of North Carolina Institute of Global Health and Infectious Disease.
Hall was the inaugural Global Mental Health Fellow of the World Health Organization and co-developed the new cultural sections of the ICD-11 Neurological and Psychiatric Conditions. He participated in the formulation of the scalable mental health program launched by the WHO, including Step-by-Step, the WHO scalable digital mental health intervention which Hall culturally adapted and trialed for Overseas Filipino Workers and Chinese young adults.
Hall is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Young Investigator Award: Applied Science, International Union of Psychological Science, and the APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest, and a Faculty Excellence in Advising Award, from the Center for Global Health (JHBSPH). Hall is an elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association and an inductee into the Delta Omega Honorary Society for Public Health. Hall has co-authored more than 330 journal articles and other publications and is a Clarivate 1% highly cited researcher.
Title:
Evidence for the importance of the social determinants of migrant health in a changing world
Abstract:
The health and wellbeing of migrant populations is a pressing global public health concern. Migrants – whether they are distressed labor migrants or humanitarian migrants – experience myriad challenges in their migration journey. Key drivers of population health risks for migrants involve cumulative exposures to the social determinants of health (e.g., discrimination, lack of decent work, poor social networks, and limits on social integration), along with potentially traumatic life events (e.g., disasters, interpersonal violence). Despite the need for mental health services, care seeking remains low due to several key barriers to treatment, including a lack of available providers, cultural taboos, and linguistic challenges. While it is important to focus on the exposures leading to poor health within these communities, positive community attributes and strengths are also critical to assess and amplify. This includes understanding the social network ties and forms of support provided, including instrumental support provided by community members which may reduce the burden of mental ill health. The current talk will provide examples from more than 15 years of community engaged mixed-methods research to understand, quantify, and intervene to improve the health of diverse migrant communities. Findings from these studies will be discussed with an emphasis on best practices for community-engaged research with vulnerable migrant groups, along with policies and interventions that could be implemented to improve the health of the population.