Lawrence H Yang

Chair and Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Associate Director, Global Center for Implementation Science

Founding Director, Global Mental Health and Stigma Program

Professional overview

Dr. Lawrence Yang is Professor and Chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences; Associate Director of the Global Center for Implementation Science at NYU; and Founding Director of NYU’s Global Mental Health and Stigma Program. He is also PI of a generous donor gift from the Li Ka Shing Foundation to fund an initiative to promote Global Mental Health and Wellness (see link).

Dr. Yang has received extensive interdisciplinary training, including clinical psychology (Boston University), psychiatric epidemiology (Columbia University) and medical anthropology (Harvard University).  Dr. Yang has received six national awards in stigma, including the Maltz Prize for Innovative and Promising Schizophrenia Research in 2021 (Brain and Behavior Research Foundation; see link). Dr. Yang has >165 peer-reviewed publications, including in journals such as JAMA Psychiatry, British Journal of Psychiatry, and the American Journal of Public Health. Regarding currently-funded NIH grants, he is PI of three separate R01 grants (below), is multiple PI of a D43 grant in Vietnam, and is co-investigator on 4 R01 grants and another R34 grant. Lawrence is also applying his expertise to address the novel topic of “Migration Stigma”, where he led a think tank and conference sponsored by the prestigious Ernst Strüngmann Forum (June, 2022; see link), which will yield a published book by MIT Press (anticipated 2023).

Brief Research Narrative: If every public health researcher had a calling card, Dr. Lawrence Yang's would be stigma.

What began as a curiosity to think, study and write about his own culture -- Chinese culture and its influences on how stigma is expressed-- drove the GPH Professor to develop a framework for how stigma acts to impede social recovery that could be applied to cultural groups to improve the lives of countless people with mental illness and their families around the world. Dr. Yang also conducts several ongoing research studies on the forefront of global mental health and implementation science.

Building upon dissertation research conducted in Beijing, China, Lawrence initiated his stigma research via an NIMH K-award (2005-2010). Lawrence conducted a study in New York City of how stigma shapes the course of mental illness among Chinese immigrants. Lawrence formulated how culture relates to stigma--i.e. the “What Matters Most” framework—to help implement interventions to improve recovery for stigmatizing conditions. He learned that upholding face (to achieve lineage obligations) was essential, as it is for Asians in many countries. Lawrence then formulated an anti-stigma intervention to help people with mental illness take a powerful step towards regaining face. To inform global programs, Lawrence then applied the ‘what matters most’ approach to HIV stigma in Botswana. Lawrence identified that “womanhood” in Botswana is signified by “having and caring for children” (AJPH, 2021).  These cultural imperatives bring pregnant women into contact with free antenatal services, including routine HIV testing, where their HIV status is discovered before their male partners, leading women diagnosed with HIV to be blamed and stigmatized. Lawrence used this framework in a completed NIMH-funded R21 grant to implement an intervention to counter culturally-salient aspects of HIV stigma that impede anti-retroviral treatment. This stigma intervention, by utilizing the perspective that a woman in Botswana who achieves ‘what matters most’ can be protected from HIV stigma, has shown promising results. Lawrence has received a new R01 (R01 TW012402) to expand this intervention for use with women with HIV with serious mental illness in Botswana. He also participated as a Scientific member of the “NIH Office of AIDS Research & NIMH HIV-Related Intersectional Stigma” Working Group (2020).

Lawrence has advanced global mental health research in China as PI of two NIMH-funded R01 studies (R01MH108385; R01 MH127631) with co-PI's, Dr.’s Michael Phillips, William Stone and Matcheri Keshavan, seeking to characterize the cognition of completely untreated psychosis in China. Recently, China has implemented programs to detect untreated psychosis countrywide. Ascertaining participants in rural China, the study has enrolled~ 300 untreated psychosis participants, who are then matched with ~300 treated psychosis participants and an additional ~300 healthy control participants. The study’s first publication shows that cognitive performance may continue to decrease as the duration of untreated psychosis becomes prolonged (JAMA Psychiatry, 2020), thus potentially shifting the scientific thinking about schizophrenia by suggesting possible novel neurodegenerative processes in the natural course of chronic psychosis. A 3-year Supplement also examines the neurobiological markers of untreated psychosis to validate three psychosis subgroups that exhibit neurobiologically distinct differences (or ‘biotypes’). A follow-up longitudinal, 5-year R01 proposal (2021-2026) to capitalize upon this rare cohort has been recently funded by NIMH.

Relevant to implementation science, Lawrence leads a project to help address the gap in global mental health treatment among those who need but do not receive care for mental disorders, which is disproportionately high in low- and middle-income countries.  There has been a call to scale-up mental health services via sharing of mental health care with a broader array of nonspecialists (e.g., community health workers). Yet, knowledge on how to successfully implement task-sharing mental health strategies in real-world settings is lacking. Lawrence is PI of a third NIMH-funded R01 (with co-PI, Dr. Judy Bass; R01 MH122851) to validate a newly-developed measure that enables rapid assessment of modifiable critical factors affecting the implementation of task sharing mental health strategies. This R01 is based upon the “Shared Research Project”, where Dr.’s Yang and Bass examined the barriers and facilitators to scale-up task-sharing interventions in four previous, NIMH-funded global regional networks spanning 4 global hubs (i.e., Latin America; Africa, and India/ Pakistan). This current study will validate this measure within three additional, ongoing NIMH-funded task-sharing mental health programs in South Africa, Chile, and Nepal, thus advancing implementation science globally.

Education

BA, High Honors and Phi Beta Kappa, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

PhD, Boston University, Boston, MA

Clinical Fellowship, Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts Mental Health Center)

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health (NIMH funded T32 Training Program in Psychiatric Epidemiology)

Honors and awards

Maltz Prize for Innovative and Promising Schizophrenia Research -- Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (2021)

NIH Fellow-Training Institute for Dissemination & Implementation Research in Health (TIDIRH) (2019)

Fellow (Elected), American Psychopathological Association (2018)

Award for Emerging Leadership, Americal Psychological Association (2012)

Award for Advancing Minority Mental Health, American Psychiatric Foundation (2012)

Young Investigator Award, NARSAD/ Brain and Behavior Foundation (2010)

Emerging Leader Award for Significant Contributions to the Advancement of Ethnic Minority Psychology, American Psychological Association (2010)

Calderone Award for Junior Faculty, Columbia University School of Public Health (2009)

REACH for the R01 Award, Columbia University Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (2009)

Early Career Research Award, American Psychological Association (2008)

Early Career Award, Asian American Psychological Association (2008)

Dalmas A. Taylor Outstanding Student Dissertation Award, American Psychological Association (Division of Clinical Psychology- Ethnic Minority Focus) (2002)

Outstanding Dissertation Award, American Psychological Association (Division of International Psychology) (2002)

Areas of research and study

Cognition and Psychosis

Global Health

Implementation science

Mental Health

Stigma of Health Conditions

“At-Risk” States for Psychosis

Publications

Publications

Investigating the relationship between self-esteem and stigma among young adults with history of suicide attempts

Principles

Stigma toward mental illness in Latin America and the caribbean: A systematic review

#Schizophrenia: Use and misuse on Twitter

Addressing stigma relating to mental illness in low- and middle-income countries

Analysis of psychometric properties of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the community attitudes towards the mentalii Ill (CAMI-BR)

Analysis of psychometric properties of the brazilian portuguese version of the community attitudes towards the mentally ill (CAMI-BR)

Development of an intervention to reduce self-stigma in outpatient mental health service users in Chile

Effects of increased psychiatric treatment contact and acculturation on the causal beliefs of chinese immigrant relatives of individuals with psychosis

Experiences of Social and Structural Forms of Stigma Among Chinese Immigrant Consumers with Psychosis

Marriage outcome and relationship with urban versus rural context for individuals with psychosis in a population-based study in China

Mental illness stigma research in Argentina

Racial and mental illness stereotypes and discrimination: An identity-based analysis of the virginia tech and columbine shootings

Stigma related to labels and symptoms in individuals at clinical high-risk for psychosis

Suicide in Latin America: a growing public health issue

Understanding the Importance of "symbolic Interaction Stigma": How Expectations about the Reactions of Others Adds to the Burden of Mental Illness Stigma

What matters most': stigma towards severe mental disorders in Chile, a theory-driven, qualitative approach

"What matters most:" A cultural mechanism moderating structural vulnerability and moral experience of mental illness stigma

A brief anti-stigma intervention for Chinese immigrant caregivers of individuals with psychosis: AdaptatioN and initial findings

Assessing depression in youth at clinical high risk for psychosis: A comparison of three measures

Authors' reply

Co-occurrence of psychotic experiences and common mental health conditions across four racially and ethnically diverse population samples

Direct-to-Consumer Racial Admixture Tests and Beliefs About Essential Racial Differences

Discrimination, arrest history, and major depressive disorder in the U.S. Black population

Examining the meaning of the rural advantage in employment for social integration