VPR/BSOS Info Session: Christina Borba (NIMH)
You are invited to attend an informational session with Dr. Christina Borba, Director of the Office for Disparities Research and Workforce Diversity at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), on Tuesday, October 24 from 11:00-12:00 in the Prince George's Room, #1211 in the Stamp Student Union on the University of Maryland, College Park campus. The event is co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research and the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences.
About the Session:
Dr. Borba will share an overview of her office's priorities to reduce mental health disparities, promote equity, and to further efforts to diversify the mental health research and substance use workforce. She will also discuss opportunities relevant to current interdisciplinary research on mental health. The session will be open for Q&A with attendees.
About the Presenter:
In her role as Director of the Office for Disparities Research and Workforce Diversity, Dr. Borba leads the development and implementation of scientific policies and research initiatives aimed at reducing mental health disparities and advancing equity in mental health interventions, services, and outcomes. Her work also focuses on increasing workforce diversity and scientific attention to mental health disparities experienced by women and people living in rural areas.
Dr. Borba's career spans more than 20 years and includes experience informing and developing evidence-based interventions to mitigate disparities in mental health among marginalized populations. Her most recent research focused on psychotic disorders and cultural psychiatry in low-resourced settings in the United States and abroad, women’s mental health, and gender differences in care. As an example of her research, Dr. Borba led a NIMH grant-funded project examining sociocultural aspects of schizophrenia in Ethiopia to understand why the disease prevalence ratio is 5:1 male to female.
Dr. Borba received her doctorate in public health from Emory University and her master’s degree in public health from Boston University. In her previous position, she served as the vice-chair of Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and director of the BMC Global and Local Center for Mental Health Disparities. The center seeks to improve the mental health of diverse global communities, both locally in the greater Boston area and internationally, through coordinated clinical, research, and training initiatives. Dr. Borba also served as an associate professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine.
About NIMH:
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the lead federal agency for research on mental disorders. NIMH is one of the 27 Institutes and Centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest biomedical research agency in the world. NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
