Monash University Department of Rural and Indigenous Health

Anton Isaacs

PhD Candidate

Telephone: +61 3 5128 1030
Facsimile: +61 3 5128 1080
Email: anisa2@student.monash.edu

Academic Qualifications

• MBBS, St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, India
• MD (Preventive and Social Medicine), >St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, India

Positions Held

• Assistant Professor, Dept. Of Community Health, St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore India

Areas of Interest

Developing community mental health services in rural and remote areas

Research Projects

• Founder- Coordinator, Maanasi- The Community Mental Health (CMH) programme of St. John’s Medical College and Hospital, Bangalore in collaboration with the dept. of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, USA in 2002 [Funded by The Rotary Foundation and local Rotary Clubs]
• Randomized trial of enhanced community care, in improving treatment adherence and outcome in women with common mental disorders- 2005- Ongoing [Funded by Anuradha Foundation, California, USA]
• Maanasi Phase II – expansion of the CMH programme to cover more villages, incorporate more services, and training of more Community Mental Health Workers- 2006 [Funded by The Rotary Foundation and local Rotary Clubs]
• Isaacs A N and Srinivasan K. (2005) Level of Mental Health Literacy concerning Common Mental Disorders (CMD) in a rural population following treatment intervention – A controlled study.
• Anton N. Isaacs, Mallipatna C Ashwin, Noel Verghese, Pretesh R. Kiran, Ratna Kumari, Effectiveness of School Children in the Detection and Referral of Patients with Cataract Blindness (2006) –In progress

Journal Affiliations

• Reviewer of Indian Journal of Community Medicine
• Member of the Editorial Board of Indian Journal of Community Medicine

Project Evaluations Conducted

• Evaluation of Family Health Awareness Campaign (FHAC) of the Government of India. (which was centred around STDs/HIV/AIDS) in various districts of Karnataka state-2002
• Facilitated Participatory Evaluations of the thematic projects of the AIDS Prevention and Control Project (APAC), Chennai, for the State of Tamil Nadu (sponsored by USAID)-1999-2001.

Women in Prostitution Project
Slum Intervention Project
Tourism and Women in Prostitution Project
Prevention Along The Highway Project [truckers]

• Health and Welfare Audit of Plantation Workers of Parry Agro Industries Ltd. (Team member)
• Participatory Evaluation of Young Adult Reproductive Health Programme of PATHFINDER International

Awards

• Paul Harris Fellow’ conferred by Rotary International in 2006
• Award of Writing Grant from Primary Health Care Research Evaluation and Development (PHCRED), Monash University Department of Rural and Indigenous Health

Presentations

• Isaacs A; Population screening of patients with neuropsychiatric illnesses in rural areas by trained village level workers. Presented at the Karnataka Association of Community Health Conference in February 2004 at Bangalore, India
• Deepa Raghunath, Anton N Isaacs, Iby Neerakkal, K Srinivasan. (2004). Profile of life stressors in rural women with depression. Presented at The 32nd Annual National Conference of Indian Association Of Preventive & Social Medicine in Feb 2005 and published in the book of Abstracts.

Publications/Reports

2006

Isaacs A N, Neerakkal I, Srinivasan K and Jayaram G. Initiating a Community Mental Health Programme in Rural Karnataka. Indian J of Community Medicine (2006); 31 (2): 86-87. Download this document.

Anton. N. Isaacs; Measuring Inter epidemic risk in a Dengue endemic rural area using Aedes larval Indices. Indian J of Community Medicine (2006); 31(3): 187-188. Download this document.
Corrigendum. IJCM (2007); 32 (3): 238

2007

Padmashree S, Anton N. Isaacs. Expectations of primary Care patients in Rural Karnataka. Pak J Med Sci (2007); 23(4): 534-37. Download this document.

Anton N Isaacs. Insufficient rural doctors: Maslow’s theory and the need for Social Accountability. Aust New Zealand J Public Health. 2007; 31 (6):582

Anton N Isaacs. Strengthening Research in Community Medicine. Indian. J. Community Med. (2007); 32 (4):239-40. Download this document.

2008

Anton Isaacs and Sunny Varghese. Remission of Writer’s Cramp with Sertraline. Australasian Psychiatry 2008; (16) 1: 55

Anton Isaacs, Noel Varghese, Cyriac Phillips, Geoiphy Pullickal. Outcome of referrals from a Primary Health Institution in rural Karnataka. Pak J Med Sci 2008;24 (1): 157-60. Download this document.

Srinivasan K, Isaacs A N, Neerakkal I, and Jayaram G. Outcome of common mental disorders in a rural community in south India”. Indian J. Social psychiatry. 2007 (In press)