Program Description

Through funding by the National Institutes of Health and the Fogarty International Center, the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health Program in Health Policy and Management, the Institute of Sociological Studies, the Prague Psychiatric Center, and the Institute of Health Policy and Economics at Charles University in Prague offer advanced multidisciplinary training and education to outstanding clinicians, economists, sociologists, public policy and mental health professionals from the Czech and Slovak Republics interested in developing finance and service delivery research training in mental health issues.

The sponsoring Universities are fully committed to producing a new generation of health policy analysts, researchers and faculty. Participants will also gain an international perspective through interactions with American post-doctoral students studying at Berkeley's School of Public Health.

The training curriculum is designed to provide rigorous didactic course work followed by the execution of a research project. Given their diverse backgrounds, trainees follow an individualized course of research and study. Programs include: courses in health care organization and finance, mental health policy, health economics, and quantitative methods; core research seminars; supervised research; and the completion of research papers suitable for publication in a professional peer-review journal.

The goals of the training program are to:

• Help ensure that adequate numbers of highly trained individuals are available to carry out the Czech and Slovak Republics health services research agenda in order to improve quality of mental care, improve the status of mental health care system, and enhance access to services.
• Ensure that a highly trained workforce is available to assume leadership roles related to the Czech and Slovak Republics' mental and behavioral research agenda.
• Provide mentorship to help trainees select and conduct research topics in the mental health services areas.

The program provides postdoctoral stipends and support for travel, relocation, and health insurance reimbursement to qualified applicants. Awards allow selected trainees to gain up to two years of training and experience in applying research methods to the problems of the mental health system in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Training will take place at both program Universities. Seminars, course work and training will be conducted in English.

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Trainee Eligibility Requirements

Participants must be Czech, Slovak, Romanian, Bulgarian, or Croatian citizens and should have backgrounds as psychiatrists or physicians, or have completed doctoral level studies in the fields of mental health, public and social policy, public health, economics or sociology. They must have demonstrated academic and professional competence and experience in public health services research. Trainees must also be fluent in English.

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