Beginning with the International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia (1965–1973) and culminating in the International Study of Schizophrenia (1991–1996), the World Health Organization studies of schizophrenia were unique in their international, temporal and technical scale. Not only do they play a critical role in the internal history of the modern field of psychiatric epidemiology, they are also taken to mark an important original for the contemporary Movement for Global Mental Health. For historians of medicine, the studies present a highly rich and productive case study for writing global and transnational histories of medical research in the post-1945 era.

The international workshop “Globalizing Schizophrenia: The History and Legacy of the WHO Schizophrenia Studies” seeks to bring together historians, philosophers, anthropologists, and psychiatrists to discuss both the historical achievements of the WHO studies on schizophrenia and their legacy, with a particular focus on understanding the links between these early studies and the contemporary Global Mental Health discourse. It builds on the existing work of an international group of historians who have addressed the WHO studies, including Ana Antic in Copenhagen, Harry Wu in Taiwan and David Robertson in the USA, as well the critical historical and anthropological scholarship on the Movement for Global Mental Health. The workshop will combine a more historical focus on the early days of psychiatric epidemiology with contemporary perspectives on Global Mental Health from anthropologists and psychiatrists to generate a dialogue about the nature, limits, dangers and opportunities of the “global” in mental health care.

For further information, please see the flyer in the download section below.