Child Behavioral Health in Sub-Saharan Africa

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

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2. Child Mental Health in Sub-Saharan Africa

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Children at the Intersection of HIV, Poverty, and Mental Health in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

      • Fred M. Ssewamala, Ozge Sensoy Bahar

      Pages 3-17

   3. Poverty and Children’s Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health in Sub-Saharan Africa

      • Thabani Nyoni, Rabab Ahmed, Daji Dvalishvili

      Pages 19-39

   4. Improving Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Africa: A Review of the Economic Evidence

      • Yesim Tozan, Ariadna Capasso

      Pages 41-65

   5. Child Maltreatment and Mental Health in Sub-Saharan Africa

      • Besa Bauta, Keng-Yen Huang

      Pages 67-92

3. Current Efforts in Policy, Research, and Practice in Child Behavioral Health: Case Examples

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 93-93

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   2. Child Behavioral Health in Ghana: Current Efforts in Policy Research and Practice

      • Emmanuel Asampong, Abdallah Ibrahim

      Pages 95-111

   3. Children and Child Behavioral Health in Nigeria: Current Efforts in Policy, Research, and Practice

      • Ednah Ndidi Madu, Hadiza Osuji

      Pages 113-123

   4. Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Kenya: Do We Need a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Policy?

      • Muthoni Mathai, Anne Wanjiru Mbwayo, Teresia Mutavi, David Bukusi

      Pages 125-143

   5. Towards Entrapment: An Escalating Reality for Children and Adolescents Living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda

      • James Mugisha, William Byansi

      Pages 145-153

4. Violence and Child Mental Health in Sub-Saharan Africa: Case Examples

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 155-155

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   2. The Role of Social Norms: A Case Study of Intimate Partner Violence Among Adolescent Girls in Nigeria

      • Ilana Seff, Lindsay Stark

      Pages 157-180

   3. Current State of Child Behavioral Health: Focus on Violence Against Children in Uganda

      • Agatha Kafuko, Clare Ahabwe Bangirana, Timothy Opobo

      Pages 181-212

   4. Determinants of Intergenerational Trauma Transmission: A Case of the Survivors of the 1994 Genocide Against Tutsi in Rwanda

      • Célestin Mutuyimana, Vincent Sezibera, Cindi Cassady

      Pages 213-233

5. Poverty and Child Mental Health: Case Examples

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 235-235

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   2. Food Insecurity, Malnutrition, and Child Developmental and Behavioral Outcomes in Ghana

      • Lois Aryee, Emmanuel A. Gyimah, Melissa Chapnick, Lora Iannotti

      Pages 237-264

   3. Child Labor in Ghana: Current Policy, Research, and Practice Efforts

      • Alice Boateng, Mavis Dako-Gyeke

      Pages 265-281

   4. Children Living on the Street: Current Efforts in Policy Research and Practice in Ghana

      • Ernestina Korleki Dankyi

      Pages 283-299

6. Interventions Focused on Child Behavioral Health in Sub-Saharan Africa: Case Examples

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 301-301

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This book highlights the emerging research and policy development efforts to address child and adolescent behavioral health in Sub-Saharan Africa, where mental health policy is at an early stage and in need of context-specific attention to its successes and shortcomings. A diverse range of researchers, with expertise on relevant policy in both the region as a whole and country-specific contexts, including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda, outline theoretically informed, culturally appropriate, evidence-based, and youth- and family-focused service models. The first work of its kind with an exclusive focus on the understudied region of Sub-Saharan Africa, this text:

• Provides an overview of the current state of child and adolescent behavioral health in the region
• Evaluates empirical work on risk and protective factors influencing behavioral outcomes
• Highlights emerging intervention research and dialogue on what works to improvechild and adolescent behavioral health
• Offers insight and strategies on how to advance child and adolescent behavioral health in policy, research, and practice

Child Behavioral Health in Sub-Saharan Africa: Towards Evidence Generation and Policy Development is a unique reference that offers guidance for current and future policy-makers, researchers, practitioners, and students as they seek to invest and engage in the healthy development of a future generation. 

• public health policy in sub-saharan africa
• global mental health
• HIV/AIDS
• non-kin support networks
• conflict and displacement
• child behavioral health interventions
• child behavioral health in emergency settings
• adolescents and youth in subsaharan africa
• adolescent health
• child and adolescent mental health
• child and adolescent behavioral health
• global social work

“This book is the first work of its kind with an exclusive focus on the understudied region of Sub-Saharan Africa. The chapters highlight the current state of policy and research evidence both in the region as a whole and in country-specific contexts … .” (brownschool.wustl.edu, January 24, 2022)

• Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, USA

  Fred M. Ssewamala, Ozge Sensoy Bahar, Mary M. McKay

Fred M. Ssewamala, PhD is William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Ssewamala leads innovative, interdisciplinary research that informs, develops and tests economic empowerment and social protection interventions aimed at improving life chances and long-term developmental impacts for children and adolescent youth impacted by poverty and health disparities in low-resource communities. He holds a joint appointment in the Washington University School of Medicine, and directs the International Center for Child Health and Development (ICHAD) and SMART Africa Center.

Currently, Dr. Ssewamala is conducting five large-scale longitudinal randomized control trials across sub-Saharan Africa funded by the National Institutes of Health: Kyaterekera Project, Suubi+Adherence-R2, Suubi4Her, SMART Africa and Suubi4Stigma. Another project, Suubi4Cancer, explores care for children living with HIV with suspected cancers. In addition, he is a co-principal investigator on several NIH-funded training projects that focus on training early-career researchers committed to careers in child behavioral health.

Dr. Ssewamala has over 100 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals on family economic empowerment and related health and mental health outcomes as well as HIV prevention. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Adolescent Health and co-edits the Global Social Welfare journal. He is a member of the Society for Social Work and Research, American Public Health Association, and the Siteman Cancer Center. Ssewamala is also a fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

 

Ozge Sensoy Bahar, PhD is Research Assistant Professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Sensoy Bahar’s research focuses on child and family well-being in global contexts characterized by poverty and associated stressors. Her current research program focuses on youth experiences of child work and labor, as well as the individual, family, and contextual factors leading to child labor in two country contexts, Turkey and Ghana. Dr. Sensoy Bahar has led two research studies funded by the National Institutes of Health focused on the unaccompanied migration of adolescent girls for labor in Ghana. The goal of her work is to develop culturally and contextually relevant interventions to reduce risk factors associated with child labor. As a qualitative methodology expert, she also leads the qualitative components of multiple NIH-funded studies.

Sensoy Bahar completed a three-year, externally funded post-doctoral fellowship at the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University Silver School of Social Work. Currently, she serves as one of the co-directors for the International Center for Child Health and Development at the Brown School. She also serves on the editorial board of the Global Social Welfare journal. 

 

Mary M. McKay, PhD is Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Dean McKay joined the Brown School as dean in 2016. Dean McKay's academic experience connects deeply to both social work and public health. She has received substantial federal funding for research focused on meeting the mental health and health prevention needs of youth and families impacted by poverty both in the US and globally, specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa. She also has significant expertise in child mental health services and implementation research methods, as well as over 20 years of experience conducting HIV prevention and care-oriented studies, supported by the National Institutes of Health.

She has authored more than 150 publications on mental and behavioral health, HIV/AIDS prevention and urban poverty, and more.

Prior to joining the Brown School, Dean McKay was the McSilver Professor of Social Work and the inaugural director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University's Silver School of Social Work. She previously served as the head of the Division of Mental Health Services Research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Her prior academic appointments include Columbia University and University of Illinois at Chicago.

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