2024
5th EPA Online Talks with Experts
This fifth session will take place on Thursday 1 February 2024 from 15:00 to 16:00 (CEST) with the participation of Dr. Mariana Pinto da Costa on the topic “Public Mental Health“. This 1-hour exchange will be chaired by Dr. Egor Chumakov, co-Chair of the ECPC Committee of the EPA, and will start with a short presentation followed by a Q&A session.
To participate in this discussion, please register HERE.
Biography: Dr. Mariana Pinto da Costa is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London and a Consultant Psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She is also an Auxiliar Professor at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar at the University Porto.
During her medical studies in the University of Porto, she studied abroad for two years (in Italy and Poland) and won a prize in 2009 from the European Commission ‘Erasmus 2 million – Erasmus success history’. She kept passionate about mobility and collaborated with the European Commission writing the Erasmus+ Generation Declaration, which she presented at the European Parliament about the future of this programme. She has been the Chief Investigator and study manager of the Brain Drain study, researching mobility experiences of psychiatric trainees in 33 European countries. She also has clinical and research experience in Africa, where she was screening alcohol, smoking and other substances involvement in primary and mental health care service users in Luanda, while studying for the International MSc on Mental Health Policy and Services at the New University of Lisbon, supported by the World Health Organization.
As part of her doctoral research in London, in consultation with people with mental illness and community volunteers, she developed an intervention ‘Phone Pal’ to remotely connect patients and volunteers over a smartphone, tested in a feasibility trial. For this work, she was nominated by Columbia University featuring in the Top 100 Innovative Women Leaders in Global Mental Health, and was distinguished with a Fellowship by the World Association of Social Psychiatry. In 2019 she was nominated by the Royal Society to represent the UK in the 10th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Her PhD work on Social Psychiatry was distinguished nationally with an Honourable Mention for a PhD thesis in the category of Management and Social Sciences at the UK 10th Doctoral Research Awards.
She has published over 100 articles (h-index: 20), including methodology and guidance papers, and in prestigious journals such as The Lancet Psychiatry, World Psychiatry, and Nature.