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Ann Marie Yamada Associate Professor Ph.D. University of Hawaii, Mānoa, 1999 M.A. University of Hawaii, Mānoa, 1995 B.S. Emporia State University, Emporia, KS, 1991 amyamada@usc.edu |
| ANN MARIE YAMADA joined the faculty in 2003 as an assistant professor after completing a National Institute of Mental Health-funded fellowship at the University of California, San Diego. Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of cultural research methodology and cultural competence. She is especially interested in enhancing the cultural relevance of community mental health services for adults and older adults with severe mental illness and in developing services for Asian Americans and other under-represented groups with documented disparities in mental health service use.
As a Degree Fellow at the East West Center in Honolulu, Dr. Yamada received a PhD certificate in intercultural studies and was honored for distinguished service. For more than a decade, she has been dedicated to enhancing the quality of life and quality of care delivered to underserved minority populations. Her clinical practice experience has centered on providing health and mental health interventions with culturally diverse people with severe mental illness. In 2007, Dr. Yamada received a three-year NIMH grant to pilot test a new intervention to give mental health providers in psychosocial rehabilitation services a more effective way to assess sociocultural issues across diverse client populations. The development and testing of the intervention was designed to be conducted in close collaboration with a large mental health rehabilitation agency in Los Angeles that serves primarily an urban, inner city and ethnically diverse population of clients with severe mental illness. The study aims to generate practical information to enhance the delivery of effective psychosocial interventions across diverse cultural groups and to support the development of culturally tailored interventions that could reduce disparities in mental health service use among vulnerable and underserved clients. Dr. Yamada is also using a mixed-methods approach to investigate how mental health/illness is understood by spiritual and religious leaders within the Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean communities. Understanding the thoughts, ideas and experiences of these community leaders in working with individuals dealing with severe mental illness is key to developing alternative interventions for ethnic minorities to decrease stigma and encourage use of mental health services. In 2005, Dr. Yamada received an Award for Excellence in Mentoring Students at USC. She teaches research methods in the MSW program, cultural research methods in the doctoral program and mentors MSW and doctoral students with interests in Asian American culture and community mental health. Dr. Yamada currently chairs the school's Diversity Committee and has been appointed a member of the CSWE Council on Racial, Ethnic and Cultural Diversity. She has also been appointed an alternate member of USC's University Park Institutional Review Board and IRB consultant for issues related to international or intercultural sensitivities. She serves as an ad hoc reviewer for NIMH and a reviewer for professional journals such as the Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work. She also is a consulting editor for Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology. |
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