Departmental Affiliations
Research Interests
Primary care, mental health, patient-doctor communication, children, physical punishment, suicide, community media, narrative as a tool in public health
Additional Links
Experiences & Accomplishments
Doctor-patient interaction, especially as it relates to disclosure and management of mental health issues in pediatric primary care. As of April, 2010, we have been funded by the NIMH to start a "developing center" to test innovative models for integrating mental health into pediatric primary care. The link below has some of our earlier efforts; a new center web-site is being developed. The center will focus mostly on US issues initially, but will hopefully eventually involve ongoing work with the Hopkins PEPFAR project in Ethiopia and with colleagues in Brazil.
Click here for information about the Center for Mental Health in Pediatric Primary Care
Other aspects of discussing sensitive issues in primary care, including end-of-life care and advance directives and physical punishment of young children. Also interested in cross-cultural applications of these issues; populations include Latin Americans and American Indians.
Local radio and audio production as vehicles for youth and community development. Work with area high school students to produce audio programs about their community.
Click here for information about the Baltimore Community Radio Coalition
Click here to access student work on immigration on Public Radio Exchange (PRX)
Click here for other audio from BCRC.
Introductory course, "Integrating Social and Behavioral Theory in Public Health". Click here for syllabus for 2009.
Narrative in public health. Through a course attended mostly by MPH students, we use narrative writing skills (documentary, exploratory, persuasive) to gain a more personal link to the social and behavioral aspects of public health.
Click here to read Dr. Hasan Shihab's narrative about poverty and medicine in Uganda
Honors & Awards
1974 - 1975 Amherst Exchange Fellowship, Ecole Normale Supérieure 1982 - 1984 Andrew Mellon Fellowship in Clinical Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene. 1984 Board certified, pediatrics; Member, American Academy of Pediatrics 1993 - 1995 Burroughs/Wellcome Fellow, American Psychiatric Association 1995 - 1996 Sol. W. Ginsburg Fellow, Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry 1996 Picker/Commonwealth Finalist Award, Health Services Research 1997 Board certified, general psychiatry 1998 Board certified, child and adolescent psychiatry; Member, Am. Acad. of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 2000 - 2005 Member, NIMH Services Review Committee, ZMH1 SRV-C 2001 Advising, mentoring and teaching recognition award, JHU School of Public Health
Select Publications
Selected publications
Wissow LS,Tegegn T,Legesse H,McNabb M,Tilahun T,Jerene D,RuffA. Collaboratively re-framing mental health for integration with HIV care in Ethiopia. Health, Policy, and Planning. 2014 Jul 10. pii: czu058.
Gadomski A, Wissow LS, Palinkas L, Hoagwood KE, Daly JM, Kaye DL. Encouraging and sustaining integration of child mental health into primary care: Interviews with primary care providers participating in Project TEACH. General Hospital Psychiatry 2014 May 21. pii: S0163-8343(14)00119-4. doi: 10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2014.05.013.
Wissow LS, Brown J, Fothergill K, Gadomski A, Hacker K, Salmon P, Zelkowitz. Mental health screening in pediatric primary care: a systematic review. J Am Acad Child Psychiatry 2013 Nov;52(11):1134-1147.e23.
Wissow L, Gadomski A, Roter D, Larson S, Lewis B, Brown J. Aspects of mental health communication skills training that predict parent and child outcomes in pediatric primary care. Patient Educ Couns. 2011 Feb;82(2):226-32.
Wissow LS, Anthony B, Brown J, DosReis S, Gadomski A, Ginsburg G, Riddle M. A common factors approach to improving the mental health capacity of pediatric primary care. Admin Policy Ment Health 2008 Jul;35(4):305-18.