This chair has been endowed by ARQ Scientific Research. It is embedded within the Athena Institute of the VU’s Faculty of Science and co-hosted by the VU’s department of Clinical, Neuro and Developmental Psychology of the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences.
Over the years, we have learned that social conditions and ongoing adversity, such as gender-based violence, poverty and social exclusion, play an important role in shaping mental health, including in humanitarian settings. Research has revealed complex vicious cycles in which social conditions and mental health reinforce each other, and are contextually situated, as opposed to the often implied straightforward unidirectional relationships from social determinants as a risk factor to mental health symptoms as the outcome.
Through interdisciplinary, systems-focused research that transcends the barriers of different academic disciplines and involves collaboration between actors across multiple policy and practice sectors, Wietse designs and evaluates contextually appropriate interventions that address the complex relationships between social conditions and mental health. Following a social justice perspective, Wietse’s research specifically concentrates on marginalized populations affected by armed conflicts and disasters.
About Wietse Tol
Wietse Tol gained his Master’s in Clinical & Health Psychology in 2002 at Leiden University, and his PhD in Public Mental Health in 2009, at VU Amsterdam, after which he completed postdoctoral training with the Global Health Initiative, at Yale University. Tol has extensive international research experience in the field of global mental health, particularly concentrating on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Between 2016 and 2020 he was affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Mental Health, in Baltimore. He has received numerous awards, including the Award for Excellence in International Public Health Practice of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Wietse Tol currently is a Global Mental Health professor at the University of Copenhagen and Program Director of the Peter C. Alderman Program for Global Mental Health at HealthRight International. He works closely with many NGO’s and actively participates in various national and international networks.