On March 28, 2024, the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), the UW Behavioral Research Center for HIV (BIRCH), and the Department of Global Health (DGH) collaborated for a conversation with two critical members of the I-TECH Ukraine team, Oksana Danylenko, MD, MPMA, and Alyona Ihnatiuk, MPH.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Olena Bidovanets was pursuing her Master’s of Public Health (MPH) degree at the University of Washington School of Public Health (UW SPH). An infectious disease and psychotherapy medical doctor, Bidovanets wanted to study public mental health. After receiving a 2021-23 Fulbright award, she moved from her home in Ukraine to Seattle.
Officially known as the Lviv Mental Health Center, the 5,000-square-foot renovated space offers free and low-cost services from about a dozen professional psychotherapists and psychiatrists. The goal is to treat wounded Ukrainian soldiers and locals suffering from PTSD and other stress-related conditions brought on by the war.
Abraham Flaxman, associate professor of global health and health metrics sciences at the UW Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, is quoted.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 created a largescale humanitarian crisis that is intensifying as the conflict persists. Millions of Ukrainians, mostly women and children, have fled the country in what the United Nations calls the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. Tens of thousands of people still in the country are finding themselves without access to food, water, power, or heat.