UWI research ‘could help build resilience’

International agencies need to collaborate on innovative solutions to fortify economic resilience in Barbados and the rest of the world, Professor Clyde Landis, the principal of the University of the West Indies Cave Hill, has said, pointing to UWI research as a potential contributor.

And this moment in history, Barbados should be seen as a leading voice from the South on global issues.

Professor Landis made the suggestion as experts met for a workshop on Building Economic Resilience through South-South Cooperation and Integrated Policy Strategies on Wednesday.

“I sometimes view Barbados as an intellectual think tank for offering innovative and ethical solutions to some of the most intractable issues within the systems of trade and finance that have acted as a brake on building economic resilience in developing countries,” the UWI principal said.

“We at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill campus have the same positive mindset seeking to offer innovative solutions in areas of public health, renewable energy, social and economic development, and many other fields relevant to this workshop.”

He noted the UWI had a deeply ingrained developmental mission to help promote the region’s social and economic development, pointing to the work being done by the Shridath Ramphal Centre for Trade Policy Law and Services, under Dr Jan Yves Remy’s leadership.

Professor Clyde Landis said: “I will confine myself to one piece of research which highlights the human cost that some of these cascading crises that this conference is seeking to address at the macroeconomic level are causing. In a wonderful piece of collaborative research on youth mental health, colleagues from the Cave Hill campus and the St Augustine campus in Barbados and Trinidad respectively from the University of the West Indies, combined with other colleagues from across the Caribbean, and further afield in Canada, the USA and the UK.

“We were able to identify and discriminate cascading traumas arising from COVID-19 and climate that are affecting Caribbean youth. The research published in the leading mental health journal, Nature and Mental Health, found evidence that anxiety arising from the dislocating effects of COVID-19 is mediated in part by emotional distress due to climate change.”

The university principal said the authors were able to formulate a new empirical model, which is immediately actionable by the counselling profession to help Caribbean youth deal with the multiple environmental traumas that could be affecting their mental health.

“The model will no doubt be replicated across the world in other geographical settings and population demographics…. The University of the West Indies Cave Hill campus is therefore pleased to be contributing on these highly relevant topics for resilience building,” Professor Landis said.

(RG)