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INSPIRATION
Training, Research & Care In Global Mental Health Delivery
Inspired by the lifework of our founder, Dr. Chester M. Pierce, we commit to improving mental health both domestically and worldwide.
The Chester M. Pierce, MD Division of Global Psychiatry is part of the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Brigham. The Division works to build capacity, conduct research, and provide technical assistance to reduce the tremendous burden that mental health disorders present in the United States and internationally. We focus on four key content areas: crisis response, service delivery, training & education, and research.
What is Global Psychiatry? Global psychiatry is an area of research and practice aimed at improving mental health in low-resource settings. Due to the gaps in mental health services and population-level disparities, both high-income and low-income countries may be considered “low-resource settings” depending on the context. Even in high-income countries with many psychiatrists, a substantial proportion of their population lacks access to mental health care because of in-country health inequities. Taking a domestic-global approach through which evidence-based practices from global settings are applied in the United States contexts, holds promise to increase access to care and strengthen existing services. In the United States, for example, “global psychiatry” might be applied to serving homeless populations in Boston or training community health workers to identify and care for people in rural areas.
HISTORY
The Chester M. Pierce, MD Division of Global Psychiatry
The Chester M. Pierce, MD Division of Global Psychiatry was one of the first programs for global mental health in an academic medical center. Dr. Chester M. Pierce, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Professor Emeritus of Education at Harvard School of Education, and Dr. Gregory Fricchione, an Associate Chief of Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Psychiatry and Professor of Psychiatry at HMS, established the “Division of International Psychiatry” in 2002 after a landmark meeting, “The African Diaspora: Psychiatric Issues,” (November 17-21, 2002, Boston, MA). This five-day conference brought together more than 40 psychiatrists of African descent to analyze, discuss, and develop an agenda to address the role of psychiatry and psychiatrists in healing the mental health problems of people of African descent throughout the world.
Drs. Pierce and Fricchione sought to develop a program that could provide clinical, educational, and research contributions to reduce the global burden of psychiatric-related disease. The intent was also to prepare a new generation of twenty-first century global psychiatrists to work with international populations in the United States and abroad.
The Division was renamed in July 2009 to honor its founder and mentor, Chester Pierce. Dr. David Henderson served as Director of the Division from 2009 – 2015. In 2015, Dr. Fricchione, who was the inaugural Director, reassumed the directorship. Dr. Guiseppe Raviola, the current Director, assumed the position in 2025.
To learn more about the founding of the Division of Global Psychiatry, click here.
From left to right: Drs. David Henderson, Chester Pierce, and Gregory Fricchione at the Naming Event for The Chester M. Pierce, MD Division of Global Psychiatry, April 22, 2010
From left to right: Drs. David Henderson, Chester Pierce, and Gregory Fricchione at the Naming Event for The Chester M. Pierce, MD Division of Global Psychiatry, April 22, 2010