Daniel Vicente Vigo
Dr. Daniel Vigo is a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, and public health specialist, originally from Argentina. After obtaining a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Psychology, an MD, and a Specialization in Psychiatry, Dr. Vigo worked in clinical, research, teaching, and leadership positions in both the public and private sectors. Here, he developed the first Assertive Community Treatment Department in Argentina, a collaboration between Proyecto Suma, King’s College (UK) and Columbia University (US). Dr. Vigo then obtained his Doctorate at Harvard, where he focused on public mental health, specifically burden of disease estimation, service improvement, and health systems assessment.
Currently, Dr. Vigo is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, jointly appointed at the Department of Psychiatry, and the School of Population and Public Health. He is also a Lecturer at Harvard’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, and an Adjunct Professor and the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Additionally, Dr. Vigo is an Advisor to PAHO and WHO, and is the Chair of the Services and Policy Workgroup of the WHO-World Mental Health Surveys Initiative. Dr. Vigo has published many high impact peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and reports on diverse mental health issues.
Dr. Vigo leads several projects at The University of British Columbia, including the Needs-Based Planning for Mental and Substance Use Disorder Project, the Student E-Mental Health Project, and several psychiatric epidemiology studies of regional, national, and global scope. The goal of his e-Mental Health portfolio (which includes CIHR and Health Canada funded projects) is to create, administer and evaluate online e-interventions and screening tools, as well as to integrate them with existing brick and mortar services. He is also working in collaboration with the Computer Science department to develop algorithms to predict the risk of developing mental and substance use disorders due to COVID-19. By using machine learning techniques and applying those to health service utilization data, the ultimate goal is to facilitate access to effective treatments. To that end, he has also received funding from a UBC SIF grant to develop a Virtual Clinic at the Department of Psychiatry in collaboration with Dr. Lakshmi Yatham and Dr. Sophia Frangou.