PhD in Public Health from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Porto and a specialist in Clinical and Health Psychology by the Portuguese Psychologists Association, Virgínia is currently an assistant researcher on the MENTBEST project, funded by the Horizon Europe programme, which develops community interventions and technology to promote the mental health of vulnerable populations in Europe.
She is a full member of the ITR in the group “Mental health literacy, wellbeing, depression, and suicide prevention”, which is part of the research line L2 – Syndemics, health inequalities, and vulnerable populations, where she participates in two more projects funded by the European Union: PROSPERH, which promotes mental and physical health at work, and Early, which aims to reduce the “burden” of non-communicable diseases in youths aged 15 to 24, such as common mental illnesses, and to identify and mitigate the overall risk factors for these disorders.
She also collaborates in the development of studies on the effectiveness of suicide prevention programmes and in the study of suicide registration errors, areas in which she has a particular interest.
She is keenly interested in the determinants of help-seeking behaviours and the effects of different implementation methodologies on the success of mental health promotion programmes.
