General Research - Organisations

African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI)

The African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI) is a mental health research capacity building grant funded through the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science (DELTAS) in Africa, a programme implemented with the support of Wellcome. AMARI is a consortium of four African universities namely; Addis Ababa University, College of Medicine - University of Malawi, University of Cape Town and University of Zimbabwe. These are supported by three UK universities namely; King’s College London, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. AMARI’s overall goal is to build an Africa-led network of future leaders in mental, neurological and substance use (MNS) research in Ethiopia, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

AMARI aims to equip researchers to lead high quality mental health research programmes that meet the needs of their countries, and to establish a sustainable career path for these researchers. A particular focus is on integrating MNS research into existing programmes such as HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health work. Areas of research include

HIV & AIDS: assessing for neuro-cognitive disorders associated with HIV. Improving sex-workers' adherence to HIV antiretroviral medication.
OVERCOMING ADDICTION: experiences of recovery from substance misuse through finding new roles in life. Intervention in emergency room settings for alcohol and drug misuse.
MATERNAL & CHILD HEALTH: impact of maternal depression on mother-to-child HIV transmission. Psycho-social interventions to treat peri-natal depression.
MENTAL HEALTH IN PHYSICAL DISEASE: validating screening tools for depression in non-communicable diseases like diabetes. Assessing interactions of psychiatric and physical medications.
SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS: trans-generational impact of Serious Mental Illness in families, and the economic costs of SMI. Psycho-social interventions for Bipolar Disorder in primary care. Understanding cognitive impairment in psychosis.
CAREGIVER BURDEN: understanding the challenges faced by those who care for people with serious medical conditions.

Over the term of their research fellowship, AMARI offer fellows a range of training courses to develop their skills. This contributes to the success of their fellowships and sets them up for long-term career success as mental health researchers and leaders. AMARI offer all of our PhD and post-doc fellows the following training packages:

Introduction course: public and global mental health, PhD requirements, research programmes
Epidemiology and statistics: study designs, disease measures, analysis strategies (year 1), and statistical computing (year 2)
Systematic reviewing: developing a proposal, search strategies, screening, writing up
ACES: Academic Competencies Enhancement Series: this ten-workshop course covers a range of non-technical career development skills - click here for details
Webinar series: additional research skills sessions delivered online, e.g. statistics, adapting interventions, implementation science, article critiques, working with research participants
Training of trainers: they have begun to expand our range of courses to include 'training of trainers' courses, which are vital to ensure sustainability of research skills in project centres. AMARIs first training of trainers session - on systematic literature reviews - was conducted in May 2018 by Helen Jack of Harvard University. In 2019, AMARI expanded the range of train the trainer sessions to encompass sessions from the ACES course on career development skills.