NDPCHS Guest Lecture Series: Public Mental Health in Primary Care - From Mindfulness-Based Interventions to Older Adult Multimorbidity
Professor Samuel Wong, Professor and Director, School of Public Health and Primary Care, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Thursday, 17 September 2026, 12.15pm to 1.45pm
St Anne's College, Woodstock Rd, Oxford
Sign up nowMental health disorders are among the leading causes of global disability, yet most people with depression, anxiety, or insomnia never reach specialist services. Primary care is where the majority of mental health care is — and must be — delivered. Drawing on two decades of research evidence, this talk from Professor Samuel Wong, presents a coherent programme of mindfulness-based and behavioural interventions, tracing their development from common mental health conditions in primary care to the emerging challenge of older adults living with multimorbidity.
The central argument is of global relevance: that scalable, evidence-based interventions for primary care exist, and that they can be meaningfully adapted for an ageing population with complex, co-occurring chronic conditions.
Dr Faraz Mughal, Senior GP Researcher, Primary Care Clinical Trials Unit, 'Professor Wong's visit and lecture comes at a critical time. The burden of mental illness for health systems is substantially increasing with most attributed to common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, while self-harm and suicide rates are also rising despite being less common but leading to severe distress for people, families, and communities. Primary healthcare services deliver the majority of mental health care, often holding unwell and high-risk patients, while specialist services are struggling with waiting list and workforce crises. We must therefore innovate and generate brief and scalable approaches to support primary care teams to manage the growing number of people presenting with mental health problems, those at risk of suicide, and older people with multimorbidity. This promises to be an excellent talk from an internationally leading academic and we look forward to seeing you there.'
St Anne's College, Woodstock Rd, Oxford
Register here: Registration Guest Lecture 17 September