Professor Charlotte Hanlon

I am a psychiatrist and mental health researcher living and working in Ethiopia. My initial work in Ethiopia (2004-2006) was for my PhD and focused on the public health impact of perinatal mental health in a rural Ethiopian setting.

The main focus of my current work is on developing, testing and implementing interventions that seek to improve the lives of people with mental health conditions in low- and middle-income countries. This includes psychological interventions, broader social/psychosocial interventions, interventions to increase involvement of people with lived experience, service models and system strengthening approaches. I have a particular interest in working with people affected by severe mental health conditions, including psychoses, and developmental disabilities. Capacity strengthening is an integral part of all our projects. I co-ordinate the PhD programme for Mental Health Epidemiology at Addis Ababa University.

My current projects include HOPE, an NIHR global health research group on homelessness and severe mental illness (co-PI with Professor Atalay Alem), SCOPE, a Wellcome Trust-funded study of the context of psychosis in Ethiopia to inform outcomes (PI), PROMISE, a Wellcome Trust-funded study on improving detection and care for people with psychosis in Malawi (my role is co-I, PI Professor Stephen Lawrie), and PRIZE, an MRC-funded project to pilot a peer support intervention for people with psychosis in South Africa (my role is co-I, the co-PIs are Dr Laura Asher and Dr Carrie Brook-Sumner). I am also country PI on SPARK, an NIHR funded cluster randomized controlled trial of WHO’s caregiver skills training for children with developmental disabilities in Ethiopia and Kenya (PIs Dr Rosa Hoekstra, Prof. Amina Abubaker).

I am a commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Ending Stigma and Discrimination in Mental health. I am co-lead (with Professor Ashok Malla) of the interventions, services and systems section of the Lancet Psychiatry Commission on Psychoses in Global Context.