The Centre for Social Sciences Research (CSSR) and the  Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa  (IDCPPA) at the University of Cape Town invite you to join us for a lunchtime seminar on 28 July 2026 at 12:45pm. The seminar will be presented by Professor Katherine Sorsdahl.

About the Seminar:

Improving Adolescent mentaL health by reducing the Impact of poVErty (ALIVE): Ethical Considerations.

The ALIVE study is a cluster randomised controlled feasibility trial evaluating a school-based selective prevention programme for depression and anxiety among adolescents living in urban poverty in Cape Town. This presentation will briefly introduce the ALIVE programme before focusing on the trial methods and emerging findings. Particular attention will be given to the ethical complexities of conducting prevention research with a selective population of adolescents who do not currently meet symptom thresholds for depression or anxiety. The presentation will also examine ethical considerations associated with cash-transfer interventions. Drawing on the South African ALIVE feasibility trial, the presentation will highlight practical lessons for designing ethically robust prevention studies with adolescents experiencing socioeconomic adversity.

Speakers

Professor Katherine Sorsdahl is Co-Director of the Alan J. Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health and a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on adolescent mental health, public mental health, implementation science, and the development and evaluation of scalable interventions in low-resource settings. She leads and contributes to multi-country studies aimed at strengthening prevention, treatment service delivery, and research capacity across Africa.

  28 July 2026
  12:45 - 14:00 SAST
  CSSR Seminar Room, 4.29, Robert Leslie Social Sciences Building, UCT

Hosted by the Centre for Social Science Research and the Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa