i4Health

i4Health is focused on closing the gaps in global disparities in mental health resources. Due to geographic and economic obstacles, most people around the world do not have proper access to health or mental health services.

One of the first steps toward reducing global mental health disparities is to provide self-help tools at little-to-no cost to the user.

By using the Internet and mobile application technology, the i4Health team is committed to developing, testing, and making available to the public behavioral and mental health interventions that can be used repeatedly by anyone who needs them around the world.

It began in 1998 at the University of California, San Francisco, Department of Psychiatry in an effort to create a non-consumable health service that could reach many and cost little – Ricardo Muñoz, Ph.D. and a team of colleagues created a smoking cessation website. The website has since grown and evolved and has helped thousands of people all over the world quit smoking in English, Spanish, Russian and Chinese.

Since the establishment of the website in 2012, Dr. Muñoz and his Latino Mental Health Research Program (LMHRP) have worked toward meeting mental health needs around the world through global mindedness, technology, and innovation. Projects have focused on depression prevention and treatment, smoking cessation, using the Internet, and mobile phone technology. i4Health works towards further developing the online tools and mobile applications conceived by the LMHRP, as well as devising new ways to reach people around the world and meet their health and mental health needs.

What makes i4Health strong is their diverse team. Bringing PAU faculty, staff, and students together, their individual experiences, cultural background and skillsets combine to give them a unique perspective on global health issues and a propensity for innovation. i4Health also collaborates with teams abroad, including Professor Eduardo Bunge’s team in Buenos Aires, Argentina, la Fundación Equipo de Terapia Cognitiva Infantil-Juvenil, as well as Professor Lucy Yardley and Professor Adam Geraghty’s team at the University of Southampton in the UK. Dr. Muñoz and his team are also looking forward to working with Professor Carmen Beatriz Neufeld of the University of São Paulo.

Support I4Health today and help move forward this integral research.

The Gender and Youth Program:

PAU is proud to highlight the work of the Gender and Youth Program (GYP), designed to support transgender and gender non-conforming youth both mentally and emotionally. Faculty member Peter Goldblum, Ph.D., MPH, is the Program Director and Lead Principal Investigator. The program develops, evaluates, and disseminates interventions that reduce psychological distress and increase resilience among transgender and gender-nonconforming youth.

The Gender and Youth Program’s vision is that all youth will have the social and emotional resources to develop and express positive identities congruent with their true selves.

The past year’s efforts of the GYP have focused on development of an intervention to address the factors found to drive distress and resilience in transgender and gender nonconforming youth. In order to be accessible to all transgender and gender nonconforming youth, this intervention has been formatted as a workbook, written to serve as a self-help resource for those who are unable to access culturally competent clinical services, and as a client workbook for those who are able to engage in services to address gender-related distress. A companion manual is also in development for clinicians working with these clients. 

GYP: Looking to the Future:

Internet-based resources will begin to become developed and will complement clinic-based treatment as well as further extend services to those who cannot access clinic-based psychotherapy, allowing the GYP to best serve the broadest population of youth with deepest effectiveness and sustainable efficiency.

In the coming academic year, GYP will advance significantly, and will start to measure its effectiveness.  PAU is proud to offer this project to the community at large, and looks forward to updating our community on the positive outcomes it produces. 

To support Gender and Youth Program (GYP) please click here.