About NCDMHR

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is the lead institution for the National Center for Disaster Mental Health Research. Founded in 1797, Dartmouth Medical School (DMS) is the fourth oldest medical school in the country. The Department of Psychiatry is the leading academic and service center for mental health in northern New England. Funded investigations include services research, trauma and PTSD, neuropsychiatry, psycho-oncology, child psychiatry, and clinical trials.

National Center for PTSD
The NCDMHR is housed at the National Center for PTSD-Executive Division (www.ncptsd.va.gov), which is closely affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry in DMS. NCPTSD was created in 1989 within the Veterans' Administration (which has since become the Department of Veterans Affairs) in response to a Congressional mandate to address the needs of veterans with PTSD.

Committed to a "science-into-practice" paradigm, NCPTSD has become a clearinghouse of research and clinical information pertaining to victims of trauma of all kinds. NCPTSD is composed of seven centers of excellence that span from Boston to Honolulu, each of which is distinguished by a particular area of expertise. In addition to maintaining its own research program, the Executive Division carries out strategic planning, directs the overall operation of NCPTSD across sites, publishes the PTSD Research Quarterly, creates and manages an award-winning website, and produces the PILOTS database.

The Executive Division, in particular, has a proven track record of collaboration with other federal agencies and has a high degree of visibility nationally. A national platform is especially appropriate for disaster research; disasters occur with striking regularity, but where they occur in any given year is not predictable.

Dartmouth Trauma Interventions Research Center
Also located in the Department of Psychiatry is the Dartmouth Trauma Interventions Research Center (DTIRC). The primary mission of DTIRC is to promote the dissemination of evidence-based trauma treatments to under-served populations. The DTIRC is a Level 3 Center of SAMHSA's National Child Trauma Stress Network.

Columbia University

The Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health (http://www.mailman.columbia.edu/) is the lead institution for the center's Methodology and Epidemiology Core.

Columbia University is one of the world's pre-eminent research universities, with over 3,500 faculty members in the Arts and Sciences and the professional schools; four campuses in the New York metropolitan area, plus a satellite campus in Paris; 25,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students; and an endowment of over $7 billion. The University is an acknowledged world leader in education and research.

The Health Sciences Division of Columbia University is located at the Columbia University Medical Center and is comprised of four academic schools: the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, and the Mailman School of Public Health (MSPH).

MSPH is notable for its excellence in public health education, cutting edge research, and service to local, national, and international communities. With over 1,100 graduate students and over 600 faculty members, MSPH is the only fully accredited school of public health in New York City and one of the oldest in the nation. The School trains public health professionals through the masters and doctoral levels in the Departments of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Environmental Health Sciences, Health Policy and Management, Population and Family Health, and Sociomedical Sciences.

Over the last three years, MSPH has doubled its budget and its grant support, and developed state-of the-art laboratories for infectious disease research. Areas of priority include global health, chronic diseases, urban health, and aging. The School also has renowned programs in HIV/AIDS, mental health, maternal/fetal health, population health, history and ethics of public health, emerging pathogens, and public health preparedness. Many other outstanding programs are in progress, including complex systems analysis and large-scale epidemiology projects. In addition to teaching and research, MSPH faculty members participate in service and outreach activities in communities in New York City and beyond. MSPH has several ongoing centers and programs that facilitate global collaboration on education and scientific research, which fosters leadership and excellence in public health education, research, and practice.

Dr Galea is Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and conducts his work through the Department. A hallmark of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health Department of Epidemiology is the multidisciplinary approach that utilizes multiple levels of investigation and analysis and increasingly focuses on the interfaces and interrelationships among health domains. This integrative approach to epidemiology, which goes beyond traditional risk-factor epidemiology and analysis, is consonant with the history of the Department and with the vision of eco-epidemiology. Our faculty have diverse areas of interest and expertise, and many cluster in five programmatic areas; these are (a) psychiatric and neuroepidemiology, (b) chronic disease epidemiology, (c) infectious disease epidemiology, (d) social epidemiology, (e) lifecourse epidemiology including aging.

University of Michigan

Michigan's Institute for Social Research (ISR) is one of the world's leading survey research institutions. Key UM NCMDHR faculty also have appointments at ISR. ISR supports research on interdisciplinary problems and is dedicated to social science in the public interest. For more than 50 years, the ISR has advanced public understanding of human behavior through empirical research of extraordinary depth and breadth. Representing the disciplines of psychology, political science, economics, anthropology, and public health, ISR research scientists have directed some of the longest-running and most widely cited and utilized studies in the nation. These include the biennial Health and Retirement Study, the NCHS National Survey of Family Growth, the longitudinal Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and the National Survey of Health and Stress (www.isr.umich.edu)

Medical University of South Carolina

National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center (www.musc.edu/ncvc) is a division of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC. Since 1974 the faculty and staff of the NCVC have been devoted to achieving a better understanding of the impact of criminal victimization, disasters, and terrorism on adults, children, and their families. Their many contributions to the scientific literature have been recognized nationally and internationally. The program activities of the NCVC are focused in four major areas: scientific research, evidence-based treatment, professional education, and consultation.

First, the NCVC has conducted important scientific research projects on different aspects of criminal victimization, terrorism, disasters, and child abuse over the past three decades. Research efforts have included examination of the mental and physical health impact of natural disasters, terrorism, urban violence, rape, physical assault, and witnessed violence, and additional research has examined the utility of behavioral interventions in treatment of victimization-related fear and distress. Studies have been sponsored by agencies such as NIMH, NIDA, NIJ, NCCAN, NICHD, and NINR. Members of the NCVC faculty have published hundreds of scientific papers. They are regularly asked for expert consultation by other researchers, and often provide consultation to agencies that fund research on adult and youth victimization.

Second, the NCVC also provides specialized clinical services to adult and child victims of violent crime, disasters, and other potentially traumatic events. The NCVC clinic serves as a resource center for the development and implementation of innovative and effective treatment and dissemination programs for adult and child victims of traumatic events. Ongoing efforts at the NCVC additionally aim to enhance accessibility to underserved populations of efficacious interventions for interpersonally victimized youth. NCVC faculty members are widely regarded as experts in the assessment and treatment of PTSD and other mental health problems associated with violence and disasters, and often are invited to provide clinical workshops that relate to treatment issues.

Third, through its internal education programs, the NCVC provides clinical and research training to clinical psychology pre-doctoral interns, psychiatry residents, social work interns, and postdoctoral fellows at MUSC. The NCVC also frequently conducts external training courses for professionals in research and treatment related to criminal victimization, disasters, terrorism, and child abuse. NCVC faculty members also provide training to other professionals at major professional conferences both nationally and internationally.

Finally, NCVC faculty members frequently are called upon to share their research findings and clinical expertise with legislators, public policy-makers, and program administrators at the federal, state and local levels. The NCVC continues to assist in the development of sound public policies for victimized adults and youth that are based on empirically derived knowledge.

Yale University and NCPTSD (Clinical Neuroscience Division)

Yale contributes its strengths in the neurobiology of resilience and the laboratories necessary to process and analyze biological data. The Clinical Neurosciences Division is one of the seven centers of excellence composing the National Center for PTSD and specializes in pharmacotherapy, neurobiology, brain imaging, and genetic epidemiology (http://info.med.yale.edu/psych/research/cog_clin.html).
It is affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University (http://info.med.yale.edu/psych/). Yale's Department of Psychiatry has been involved in disaster preparedness and response since the 2001 terrorist attacks, which affected many citizens of Connecticut.

At the request of the Governor of the State of Connecticut, with SAMSHA funding, the Center for Trauma Response, Recovery, and Preparedness (CTRP) was established in November 2001 by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Department of Children and Families in partnership with the Yale University School of Medicine (Child Study Center and the Department of Psychiatry) and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine (Department of Psychiatry). CTRP has provided specialized disaster counseling training and supervision training to more than 1,000 behavioral health providers and has developed an organized network of behavioral health crisis response/recovery providers.

The goal was to enhance and systematize the capability of existing networks of local MH/SA providers to deliver trauma crisis and recovery counseling for affected people. CTRP staff worked closely with national experts, Connecticut agencies, and community groups to develop: (1) evidence-based screening for early identification of non/under-served affected people; and (2) preventive education materials preparing people to proactively address the expectable reactions and prevent persistent problems through the use of natural support systems and existing services. Key recipients include affected people in the general public and among DMHAS clients, parents and school/childcare personnel, healthcare providers and professionals, first responders/recovery workers and their families, senior services providers, employers and EAP's and state and local emergency managers.