The NYSPHA Mental Health workgroup promotes mental health and well-being for all New Yorkers through education, communication, advocacy, and action.
Get to know the committee’s important work:
- Developed the Mental Health Webinar Series, featuring various topics and renowned speakers. In 2025, we hosted 10 webinars and 355 attendees. Topics included social justice, comics and mental health, workplace burnout, leadership, the impact of mental health on specific professional groups (e.g., hairstylists, farmers), 988 in New York State, and opioid use disorders.
- Hosted the Express Yourself for Public Health discussion series quarterly throughout 2025, with 160 public health students and professionals from across the country. These facilitated small group discussions gave people the opportunity to express how they’re feeling amid the challenges faced by public health, what they’re doing to get around those challenges, and what NYSPHA can do to support our members and the larger public health community.
- Awarded the Affiliate Innovation in Public Health Award at the 2025 American Public Health Association annual meeting, for prioritizing mental health efforts at NYSPHA.
- Created the NYSPHA Statewide Behavioral Health Advisory Group to convene behavioral health leaders of key organizations across the state, including the NYS Office of Mental Health, Office of Addiction Services and Supports, the NYS Conference of Local Mental Hygiene Directors, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Mental Health Association in NYS, and NYSARH. This group is helping to guide NYSPHA’s behavioral health priorities as well as set the stage for potential partnerships.
The workgroup meets every third Tuesday of the month, from 5-6pm via Zoom.
To join or learn more, contact workgroup chair, Brett Harris, at bharris@albany.edu.
Pictured: Chair, Brett Harris, receiving the Affiliate Innovation in Public Health Award at APHA.