APA to Honor Contributions to Hispanic Mental Health

The APA annual meeting in May in San Francisco will mark the 39th presentation of the Simón Bolívar Award. The Simón Bolívar Award was established in 1975 to honor a prominent advocate for Hispanics and was designed to inform the APA membership about the mental health problems and goals of Hispanics.

The award recipient receives a plaque and a $500 honorarium and delivers a special award lecture at the annual meeting. Nominees for the award must be of Hispanic descent. Nominations require a letter summarizing why the nominee is deserving of the award, a one-page biographical sketch of the nominee, and the nominee’s curriculum vitae. Selection is made by a work group of the APA Council on Minority Mental Health and Mental Health Disparities, which includes a representative from the council and officers of the Caucus of Hispanic Psychiatrists.

“The Simón Bolívar Award acknowledges the contributions of researchers and clinicians who focus their attention on a critical population of our society,” Daniel Martinez, M.D., a member of the council, told Psychiatric News. “As Latinos become a greater percentage of the U.S. population, it becomes increasingly important to establish valid protocols for health maintenance, through scientifically proven treatments and culturally sophisticated services.” He added that “the Simón Bolívar Award also sheds light on leaders who care for and work with Latino communities. Most importantly, more junior APA members become acquainted with the work of senior APA members through the Simón Bolívar award, and this opens avenues for continued focus and progress on behalf of Latinos.”

The 2013 Simón Bolívar award lecture will be given by Glorisa Canino, Ph.D. Canino is the director of the Behavioral Sciences Research Institute at the University of Puerto Rico. The lecture is scheduled to be given on Saturday May 18, at 1 p.m. in Golden Gate C1/C2 at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis. ■