Annika C. Sweetland, DrPH

Dr. Annika Sweetland is an Associate Professor with dual appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at Mailman School of Public Health. For the past 20 years, she has been involved global mental health work in Latin America (Peru, Haiti, Brazil), Africa (Nigeria, Mozambique, South Africa) and the United States, with a topical focus on tuberculosis (TB) and depression. Most of her research focuses on how to increase access to mental health services in low resource settings by training lay providers (task-shifting) to deliver brief evidence-based interventions. She is Director of Research and Evaluation for the Columbia Community Mental Wellness Center and Co-Training Director of the NIMH-funded T32 Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Global Mental Health & Implementation Science (T32 MH096724; PI: Wainberg). She is Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the TB and Mental Health Working Group at the International Union Against TB and Lung Disease and lead consultant to the World Health Organization to develop guidance and training materials for TB and mental health integration. She has been a faculty instructor on three global implementation science training grants including two Fogarty-funded D43 Implementation Research Training grants to build research capacity in Mozambique and South Africa (D43 TW009675; PI: Wainberg & Oquendo; D43TW012497; PI: Medina-Marino) and one NIMH funded U19 mental health hub grant in Southern Africa (U19 MH113203; PI: Wainberg). She was PI of an NIMH-funded implementation science pilot study in Brazil which sought to explore whether using the principals of social network analysis could accelerate the scale up of a brief depression intervention, interpersonal counseling (IPC), among TB patients in primary care (K01 MH104514; PI: Sweetland) and is currently leading a large clinical trial in South Africa to assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of implementing IPC for people with TB and depression to improve outcomes (R01AI148461; PI: Sweetland). She also leads two small qualitative studies: 1) examining how to address the complex multimorbidities of TB, HIV, and mental and substance use disorders in Mozambique and 2) exploring providers’ perspectives about integrating an evidence-based single session intervention in primary care in New York. Throughout her global mental health research career, she's subspecialized in implementation and dissemination science, cross-cultural measurement of psychiatric disorders, transcultural adaptation of evidence-based interventions, e-learning, mobile technology to enhance data driven health planning, and sustainable development.