Associate Professor
DB 5022L
bweobong@yorku.ca
Dr. Benedict Weobong has degrees in psychology, mental health epidemiology from Universities of Ghana and London. A global mental health epidemiologist and academic, Dr. Weobong’s research involves instrument development, perinatal depression, alcohol and substance use, mental healthcare systems, and health promotion interventions. His research portfolio is informed by the principles of global mental health along three strands (developing and evaluating psychological treatments; implementation research to scale up evidence-based interventions for mental disorders in routine primary health care settings; and school-based health and wellbeing programmes), tied together through the innovative use of task-sharing strategies. His current research laboratory holds three important activities: developing a step-up care intervention to treat depression and anxiety among adolescents in Ghana (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/african-youth-in-mind);evaluating the implementation of a routine health check-up programme for adolescents; and building a critical mass of global mental health researchers through doctoral and post-doctoral training (https://amari-africa.org) .His research has been funded by NIHR, GCRF, Fondation Botnar, WHO, FCDO, and Wellcome Trust.
Dr. Weobong is currently an Academic Editor at PloS ONE, and Editorial Board Member at BMC Psychiatry.
Prior to joining York, Weobong taught courses and supervised both undergraduate and post-graduate students in social and behavioural sciences at the School of Public Health, University of Ghana.
Graduate supervision
Dr Weobong is open to supervising PhD students interested in global mental health research in general, with a focus on: measurement; the etiology (and effective treatments) of mental health conditions such as depression through the science of immuno-psychiatry; understanding and codifying the social determinants of mental health conditions; psychological treatment development targeting prevention/treatment depression, anxiety, and alcohol use conditions among young people and adults in low- and middle-income settings; innovative use of task-sharing (human interface and digital) to deliver mental health interventions; Implementation research to scale up evidence-based interventions for mental disorders in routine primary health care settings; climate change-mental health nexus.