Huma Manjra

Huma Manjra is a rising senior at Northwestern University studying Neuroscience with a minor in Sociology. Her passions are centered around understanding and addressing the stigma and barriers of access to mental health care in Muslim populations and marginalized communities. She is also interested in investigating effective community-based mental health interventions and program design. As an aspiring physician, she hopes to combine her passion for global mental health and medicine by providing integrated care to underserved communities and researching the impact that physical illnesses have on overall mental well-being in primary care.

During the summer of 2021, Huma worked with Dr. Kate Lovero on her research around trauma in adolescent populations in Mozambique. Dr. Lovero and her team had traveled to Mozambique to conduct a study investigating exposure to potentially traumatic events and their impact on mental health disorders in adolescents residing in Maputo City. Throughout the summer, Huma continued to add to the literature review on trauma in adolescents in primarily lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Huma was able to draw from a plethora of studies and contextualize Mozambique’s sample and its rates of trauma and mental disorders in comparison to other adolescents in different LMICs. Along with the help of her PI and another Research Assistant, Huma was able to contribute to the manuscript by editing the results section, extracting data from sources, and ultimately, drafting the discussion section. She wrote about the prevalence of trauma, rates of polyvictimization, exposure to different trauma types and forms, and the association between trauma and mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Using extensive literature, she was able to compare Mozambique’s rates to other LMICs and High-income countries and drive home the point around the need to shift attention and action to building mental health infrastructure for adolescent populations in LMICs as Mozambique.

Huma is grateful for all the technical skills, professional relationships, and memories she has made during this internship. CUGMHP has opened up a variety of different opportunities and networks that she hopes to use throughout her personal and professional career. She is so thankful to all the staff, faculty, mentors, and students who made this program what it is and for cultivating a collaborative space to tackle global mental health and make a meaningful impact.