Center for
Global Health

Associate Scholar

Languages - English (native), Spanish (basic)

BIO STATEMENT 

Tim Becker is a psychiatry resident in the global mental health track at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He has longstanding interests in understanding social and cultural determinants of health and improving access to quality health services. During medical school at Penn, he spent two research blocks in Botswana, initially developing a head trauma database, and later qualitatively investigating explanatory models and stigma related to mental illness. In residency he has been involved with immigrant mental health evaluations, remote supervision of mental health nurses in Liberia, and numerous studies on cross-cultural stigma.

RECENT GLOBAL HEALTH PROJECTS

- qualitative study of structural and cultural aspects of HIV-related stigma among Chinese immigrants in NYC
- development and psychometric validation of culturally grounded scale to measure HIV stigma in Botswana
- qualitative study of explanatory models of mental illness in Botswana

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Yang, L.H.*, Ho-Foster, A.R.*, Becker, T.D., Misra, S., Poku, O.B., Rampa, S., Entaile, P., Goodman, M., Blank, M.B. (2020). Psychometric Validation of a Scale to Assess Culturally-Salient Aspects of HIV stigma among women living with HIV in Botswana: Engaging “What Matters Most” to Resist Stigma. AIDS & Behavior.

Becker, T.D.*, Poku, O.B.,* Chen, X., Wong, J., Mandavia, A., Huang, M., Chen, Y., Huang, D., Ngo, H., Yang, L.H. (2020). The impact of China-to-US immigration on structural and cultural determinants of HIV-related stigma: Implications for HIV care of Chinese immigrants. Ethnicity & Health

Poku, O., Ho-Foster, A., Entaile, P., Misra, S., Mehta, H., Rampa, S., Goodman, M., Arscott-Mills, T., Eschliman, E., Jackson, V., Benti, T., Becker, T, Eisenberg, M., Link, B., Go, V., Opondo, P., Blank, M., Yang, L. ‘Mothers moving towards empowerment’ intervention to reduce stigma and improve treatment adherence in pregnant women living with HIV in Botswana: study protocol for a pragmatic clinical trial. Trials 21, 832 (2020).

Poku, O.B., Becker, T.D., Ho-Foster, A.R., Rampa, S., Entaile, P., Yang, L., Mehta, H., Eisenberg, H., Cao, D., Opondo, P.R., Blank, M.B., Yang, L.H. (2020). Reflections on qualitatively investigating HIV and mental illness stigma in Botswana with a multi-cultural and multi-national team. SAGE Research Methods Cases.

Ramogola-Masire, D., Poku, O., Mazhani, L., Ndwapi, N., Misra, S., Arscott-Mills, T., Blank, L., Ho-Foster, A., Becker, T.D., Yang, L.H. (2020). Botswana’s HIV Response: Policies, Context and Future Directions. Journal of Community Psychology. 48(3), 1066-1070

Becker, T.D., Ho-Foster, A.R., Poku, O.B., Marobela, S., Mehta, H., Cao, D., Yang, L., Blank, L., Dipatane, V., Moeng, R., Molebatsi, K., Eisenberg, M., Barg, F., Blank, M.B., Opondo, P., Yang, L.H. (2019). “It’s when the trees blossom”: Explanatory beliefs, stigma, and mental illness in the context of HIV in Botswana. Qualitative Health Research, 29(11), 1566–1580.

Cox, M., Becker, T., Motsumi, M. (2018). Head trauma: a significant public health concern among young men in Botswana—aetiology, referral patterns and opportunities for interventions. Journal of Public Health in Africa, 9(2), 798

Cox, M., Becker, T.D., Motsumi, J. (2018). Head Injury burden in a major referral hospital emergency centre (EC) in Botswana. African Journal of Emergency Medicine, 8(3), 100-105.

Last Updated: 28 January 2022