title: Shekhar Saxena
text: # Shekhar Saxena
  
  Shekhar Saxena, MD, FRCPsych, DAB, MRC, Psych, since 1998 has worked at the World Health Organization (WHO) and since 2010 has been the Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse (MSD) at World Health Organization's Headquarters Office in Geneva, Switzerland. He is recipient of the 2017 Leon Eisenberg Award. In September 2018 joined the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as visiting professor of Global Mental Health in the Department of Global Health and Population.
  
  ## Education
  
  * MD, Psychiatry - All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, India (AIIMS)
  * Medical residency - All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, India (AIIMS)
  
  ## Career
  
  Before joining WHO in 1998 and moving to Geneva, Saxena served as a clinical psychiatrist to patients in Delhi, India. One of the organizations he worked for was the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He has worked with many major European and North American research and academic institutions, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institute of Mental Health in the United States and has been interviewed widely on television and radio, including NPR. In 2010, he was appointed the Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse.
  
  Some of his work involves the prevention and management of mental, developmental, neurological, and substance use disorders, and suicide prevention. At WHO, he also led the implementation of the organization's mental health Gap Action Programme.
  
  On 9 May 2017, he received the 8th Annual Leon Eisenberg Award at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In June 2018, after 8 years, he stepped down as the Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at WHO.
  
  He is scheduled to speak to the 3rd Global Conference on Health and Lifestyle at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California, 9–13 July 2019.
  
  ## Personal life
  
  Shekhar Saxena is married to Dr. Abha Saxena, Director of Global Health Ethics at the World Health Organization. She is also a medical doctor, anesthesiologist, and a bioethicist, and together they live in Geneva, Switzerland. They have two adult daughters no longer living with them.
  
  ## Recent publications
  
  * Saxena, Shekhar; O'Connell, Kathryn; Underwood, Lynn (2002). "A Commentary". The Gerontologist. 42: 81–5. doi:10.1093/geront/42.suppl_3.81. PMID 12415137.
  * Saxena S, Paraje G, Sharan P, Karam G, Sadana R. The 10/90 divide in mental health research: trends over a ten-year period. Br J Psychiatry 2006; 188: 81–82.
  * Saxena, Shekhar; Thornicroft, Graham; Knapp, Martin; Whiteford, Harvey (2007). "Resources for mental health: Scarcity, inequity, and inefficiency". The Lancet. 370 (9590): 878–89. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61239-2. PMID 17804062. S2CID 8916770.
  * Prince, M. Patel, V., Saxena, S, Maj, M, Maselko, J., Phillips, MR, Rahman, A. No health without mental health. The Lancet. 4 September 2007.
  * Saxena, S, Esparza, P, Regier, DA, Saraceno, B, and Sartorius, N, Eds. Public Health Aspects of Diagnosis and Classification of Mental and Behavioral Disorders: Refining the Research Agenda for DSM-5 and ICD-11.
  * Patel, Vikram; Saxena, Shekhar (2014). "Transforming Lives, Enhancing Communities — Innovations in Global Mental Health" (PDF). New England Journal of Medicine. 370 (6): 498–501. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1315214. PMID 24428425.
  * Vikram Patel, F. Med. Sci., and Shekhar Saxena, M.D., "Perspective. Transforming Lives, Enhancing Communities—Innovations in Global Mental Health," The New England Journal of Medicine (15 January 2014).
  * Evans, T, Marquez, PV, and Saxena, S. (2015). "The zero hour for mental health." The World Bank Blogs, 4 May 2015. Available at http://blogs.worldbank.org/health/zero-hour-mental-health.
  * Marquez PV. "Shining a light on mental illness: An 'invisible disability'"? The World Bank Blogs. 2015. Dec 2, 2015. Available at http://blogs.worldbank.org/health/shining-light-mental-illness-invisible-disability;
  * Saxena S, and Marquez, PV. Making Mental Health a Global Priority. Chapter 8 in Glovin, B. Cerebrum 2016: Emerging Ideas in Brain Science. The Dana Foundation.
  * Collins, Pamela Y; Saxena, Shekhar (2016). "Action on mental health needs global cooperation". Nature. 532 (7597): 25–7. Bibcode:2016Natur.532...25C. doi:10.1038/532025a. PMID 27078549.
  * Kleinman, Arthur; Estrin, Georgia Lockwood; Usmani, Shamaila; Chisholm, Dan; Marquez, Patricio V; Evans, Tim G; Saxena, Shekhar (2016). "Time for mental health to come out of the shadows". The Lancet. 387 (10035): 2274–2275. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30655-9. PMID 27302252. S2CID 46598006.
  * Marquez PV, Saxena S. "Mental Health Parity in the Global Health and Development Agenda" The World Bank Blogs. 2016. 4 Apr 2016. Available at http://blogs.worldbank.org/health/mental-health-parity-global-health-and-development-agenda.
  