Activities of Cochrane Global Mental Health are coordinated by Corrado Barbui, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health and Service Organization, University of Verona, and Marianna Purgato, Assistant professor affiliated with the WHO Collaborating Centre in Verona.
Activities are planned, developed and conducted in partnership with the five Cochrane Review groups that cover the area of mental health: Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Group, Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group, Cochrane Developmental, Psychosocial and Learning Problems Group, Cochrane Drugs and Alcohol Group, and Cochrane Schizophrenia Group.
The core members of the team are listed below:
Prof. Corrado Barbui, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry, at the University of Verona, Italy, where he is chairperson the Department of Neuroscience, Biomedicine and Movement Science. He coordinates the activities of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health and Service Evaluation. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, a Cambridge University Press Journal. Corrado Barbui is the PI of several national and international multisite research programmes evaluating the effectiveness and acceptability of pharmacological and non-phamacological interventions for mental health conditions. He conducts research in the field of global mental health, evidence-based psychiatry, psychiatric epidemiology, clinical psychopharmacology and health services research.
Dr. Marianna Purgato, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and works as Assistant Professor in Applied Medical Technology and Methodology at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health and Service Evaluation, University of Verona, Italy. She has an interest in applying the evidence-based approach to the evaluation of the effectiveness of psychological and psychosocial interventions for mental health conditions, with a particular focus on global mental health. She is also interested in the implementation of scientific evidence into clinical practice using rigorous and innovative research methodologies. She serves Cochrane as Editor for the Schizophrenia Group, and the Common Mental Disorders Group. In 2017 she co-founded, together with Professor Barbui, Cochrane Global Mental Health, which represents a satellite of the five Cochrane groups working on mental health.
Prof. Michela Nosè, MD-PhD, is a psychiatrist with clinical and research interest. She is a member of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health and Service Evaluation, Department of Neuroscience, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, Section of Psychiatry, University of Verona, Italy. She conducts research in the field of psychiatric epidemiology, systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials, global mental health, clinical psychopharmacology and health services research, with a particular focus on vulnerable populations. She is also interested in the implementation of scientific evidence into clinical practice using rigorous and innovative research methodologies. She has been involved in several international collaborative projects and published several papers in international and national peer-reviewed journals. She is a member of Italian Society of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Italian Society of Psychiatry.
Dr. Giovanni Ostuzzi, MD-PhD, is Lecturer in Psychiatry at the University of Verona (Italy), Department of Neuroscience, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, Section of Psychiatry. He received training in epidemiology, clinical psychopharmacology and research synthesis at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health and Service Evaluation of the University of Verona and received additional training as a Visiting Researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. He has an interest in conducting research in the field of evidence-based mental health and pharmacoepidemiology, with a focus in evaluating the efficacy and tolerability of psychotropic drugs. He has expertise in the field of research synthesis, including umbrella reviews and network meta-analysis on the long-term efficacy and tolerability of antipsychotics in people with schizophrenia. He has also been involved in activities of guideline development following the GRADE methodology coordinated by national and international institutions (including WHO, UNHCR, and the Italian National Institute of Health).
Dr. Davide Papola, MD-PhD, is a psychiatrist and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, holding a joint appointment at Harvard Medical School and the University of Verona. Since 2016, he has been actively involved in Global Mental Health as a member of the Cochrane Global Mental Health Network. His expertise lies in the design and creation of systematic reviews, oriented to summarize clinical trial findings using meta-analytic techniques, and the production of evidence based clinical guidelines, covering the pathway from knowledge production to its uptake in clinical practice. He acquires knowledge in research methodology and the GRADE method. He has been involved in activities of guideline development according to this methodology coordinated by national and international institutions (including WHO and the Italian National Institute of Health). He has also an interest in psychotherapy research. Dr. Papola currently works in the research group of Prof. Vikram Patel, at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine of Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts.
Dr. Chiara Gastaldon, MD-PhD, is a psychiatrist and Postdoctoral Fellow, holding a Swiss Postdoctoral Scholarships for Foreign Researcher at the University of Bern and the University of Verona. Since 2016, Dr. Gastaldon has been actively involved in Global Mental Health (GMH) as a member of the Cochrane Global Mental Health Network. Her expertise lies in the design and creation of systematic reviews, oriented to summarize clinical trial findings using meta-analytic techniques, and the production of evidence based clinical guidelines, covering the pathway from knowledge production to its uptake in clinical practice. After collaborations in London and New York, in 2021 she started working at the ISPM at the University of Bern under the supervision of Prof. Georgia Salanti to rank the safety and efficacy of treatments for mental health conditions, through the conduction of systematic reviews and network meta-analyses. She has been involved also in activities with the IeDEA-South African (International Epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS) to assess risk factors for mental health conditions and physical comorbidities in LMIC, and WHO in order to update and reshape the obsessive-compulsive disorder section of the WHO Essential Medicine List.
Dr. Federico Tedeschi, PhD, is a statistician working at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health and Service Evaluation, University of Verona, Italy. He has been involved in several national and international projects as coordinator of the statistical analyses, including data management. His research interest focuses on the statistical modelling for evidence synthesis and the methodology of systematic reviews. He is also interested in network meta-analysis. Several of his methodological and statistical developments have been applied to answer clinical questions in the field of mental health.
Dr. Giulia Turrini is a clinical psychologist. She is currently a research assistant at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health and Service Evaluation, Department of Neuroscience, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, Section of Psychiatry, University of Verona, Italy. Her current research interests include the mental health of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, the epidemiology of mental disorders and the efficacy of psychosocial interventions. She is also interested in the implementation of scientific evidence into clinical practice using rigorous and innovative research methodologies. She has been involved in international collaborative projects and published several papers in international journals.
