Andre Sourander, MD, will present, Population based digitalized interventions with telephone coaching for childhood anxiety, preschool disruptive behavior and prenatal depression, September 28 at 3:00 pm.

Recently, issues related to racism, poverty, gender discrimination, ableism, and other forms of oppression and inequities were exposed. Agencies have spent countless hours developing strategies to respond to these inequities and engage communities of color. Through these efforts, we have learned that our ability to keep conversations and environments free of risk is difficult. Creating safe spaces will no longer yield the results desired and needed to bring about change. The conversations will not get easier, but our ability to press forward toward more meaningful dialogue will expand. This session will highlight some lessons learned from engaging diverse populations and explore strategies to turn safe spaces into brave spaces that lead to thought-provoking conversations with communities.

Dr. Sourander’s presentation will describe the background, development of interventions, and results of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) and implementation challenges in a real-world context.

Andre Sourander, MD, is professor in child psychiatry and chief physician at Turku University in Finland. He is head of the child psychiatry research center, including 70 staff members, and part of Finnish Academy Flagship INVEST. Sourander received an ERC grant in 2021, a highly competitive 5-year research grant in Europe. He has been PI or co-PI on several RO1 grants, Center of Excellence grants, as well as NARSAD and Conte Center grants. His main research interests have been prenatal epidemiology, birth cohort studies, service use, cross- cultural studies, and digitalized early interventions. He has supervised 28 PhD theses and published 350 peer reviewed original studies. He has been affiliated as adjunct professor at Columbia University and visiting professor in Norway, China, Japan, and Indonesia.