Social Determinants of Psychopathology: Bridging Etiologic Research and Translation To
Improve The Lives Of Patients And Populations

The social causes of psychopathology have been recognized nearly as long as psychopathology
itself. Advances in research on the social determinants of psychopathology have enabled us to
understand the causal role of social factors on mental health. For nearly all aspects of the
mechanistic underpinnings of psychopathology, we are enjoying a greater understanding of how
social factors influence mental health. Social factors become embodied through genomic
processes, become encoded in the developing brain, and have enduring influences on
neurocognitive development in childhood and cognitive decline later in life. Social factors
moderate treatment response and treatment outcomes for many psychiatric conditions. And social
factors fundamentally shape the ability to seek and receive mental health care. Unfortunately, the
tremendous gains in understanding how social factors cause and sustain psychiatric illness have
not yet led to comparable gains in preventing psychiatric illness and in reducing disparities in
psychiatric illness; nor have they led to comparable gains in the effectiveness of psychiatric care. I
propose to organize an APPA conference that would bring together leading scholars on the social
determinants of psychopathology across mental health’s disciplines – epidemiology,
anthropology, sociology, genomics, neuroscience, biostatistics, psychiatry, and health policy – to
present on our current understanding of how social factors cause mental illness, and what stands
in the way of this understanding being fully utilized to improve the lives of patients and
populations.

Conference highlights (see the full conference agenda here):

·       Keynote presentations on the social determinants of mental health, community and clinical interventions, social policy, racial and ethnic disparities, and global mental health by Professors Margarita Alegría (Massachusetts General Hospital), Dolores Acevedo-Garcia (Brandeis University), David Williams (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health), and Vikram Patel (Harvard Medical School)

·       Featured panels on bridging etiologic and intervention research, addressing the social determinants of mental health through social and economic policies, qualitative approaches to addressing the social determinants of mental health, and the social determinants and global mental health (jointly hosted by the APPA and the World Psychiatric Association Section on Epidemiology and Public Health)

·       Addresses by the 2025 award recipients: Theresa Betancourt (Hoch Award), Stephen Gilman (Hamilton Award), Jaimie Gradus (inaugural Breslau and Murphy Award), John Pamplin (Robins and Guze Award), and David Williams (Zubin Award)

·       Opportunities for early career investigators and clinicians (including a mentorship program and early career roundtable)

·       Trainee Workshop on March 5, 2025, open to all conference attendees at no additional cost

·       Continuing education credits for physicians and psychologists

The APPA Council looks forward to seeing you in Boston for APPA 2025!