Singapore Mental Health & Wellbeing
Opening Panellists
Tan Weng Mooi
Director / Co-Head (Integrated Health Promotion)
Ministry Of Health Office for Transformation Care (MOHT)
Weng Mooi, Pharm D, EMBA, has over 30 years of experience in health care. She currently co-leads in the development of healthy precincts and digital mental health strategies and solutions. One key digital platform developed is mindline.sg twinned with AI-chatbot Wysa. It aims to empower and enable individuals to take care of their mental well-being with self-help resources, assessment and activities in an anonymous and safe space.
Before then, she was the Chief of Caregiving and Community Mental Health in a government agency. She led a team in the development and implementation of the national plan on caregiving and community mental health. The national masterplan aims to maximise potential of individuals and support aging in place in the community. It achieved this through developing capacity and capability of providers, building integrated networks to enhance care coordination across health and social care. For over 20 years, she served in a variety of leadership roles including Chief Operating Officer in Singapore’s leading mental health institution.
Weng Mooi is passionate and determined to push for the transformation of care to be person centric, holistic, and empowering, integrating with the natural environment.
John Wong Chee Meng
Lin Jo Yan and Yeo Boon Khim Professor in Mental Health and Neuroscience; Director, Mind Science Center & Senior Consultant Psychiatrist, NATIONAL UNIVERSiTY HOSPITAL AND NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE
Associate Professor John Wong Chee Meng is a Senior Consultant Psychiatrist, the Lin Jo Yan and Yeo Boon Khim Professor in Mental Health and Neuroscience, and Director of NUS-NUHS Mind Science Centre, which focuses on building cognitive and emotional resilience across the age continuum in the community.
Through community-based programs and technology innovation, work to impact and enhance mental health service delivery, especially in the early adoption of digital mental health, pioneering the first WYSA Chabot cohort in Singapore.
As the immediate past President of the College of Psychiatrists, Academy of Medicine, Singapore, and current Board Director of the Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists, John is committed to promoting cross-regional collaborative psychiatry education and mental health research.
His clinical and research interests cover stress and resilience in school-age children, youth, and working adults, resilience profiling, and how they affect life trajectories impacted by psychological demands and traumatic incidents.
Breakout Session Panellists
Jimmy Lee Chee Keong
PSYCHIATRIST & SENIOR CONSULTANT | REGIONAL CHIEF OF NORTH & CENTRAL REGIONS, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOSIS, INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH; ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, LEE KONG CHIAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
Dr. Jimmy Lee is a psychiatrist and clinician-scientist at the Institute of Mental Health and an Associate Professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University.
At the Institute of Mental Health, Jimmy oversees the coordination and delivery of multi-disciplinary team-based care to people in recovery. Jimmy’s research motivation centres on the improvement of outcomes and recovery in people with serious mental illnesses. His specific clinical research area is in psychosis. He is interested in the development and application of digital technologies in mental health care and has been involved in several projects on digital phenotyping, digital therapeutics and AI-enabled platforms.
Joan Low
Founder and CEO, ThoughtFull
Joan Low is the Founder and CEO of ThoughtFull, a digital mental health company whose vision is to make access to mental healthcare seamless and affordable. ThoughtFull partners with employers, insurers, healthcare providers to bring end-to-end mental healthcare through their app, ThoughtFullChat. Through ThoughtFullChat, individuals can instantly connect with certified counselors and psychologist for 1-on-1 daily bite-sized coaching and access evidence- based tools. As a mental health caregiver for the past 20 years, Joan recognized the vast innovation gaps in the current system and is now an advocate of mental health, technology for impact, and women in HealthTech. Previously, Joan was a banker at J.P. Morgan, Hong Kong, for 6 years managing a portfolio of over USD1.3 billion in assets under supervision. For more information, visit www.thoughtfull.world, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Matt Oon
FOUNDER AND CEO, ACCESET
Acceset, a digital mental health company. His past works include a mental health research project funded by Wellcome Trust Foundation and implementing tech-based mental health solutions funded by Tote Board. He is currently developing a digital protocol for online peer support together with Hogan Lovells. In addition, he is also preparing a research study to look at the efficacy of digital peer support intervention in partnership with National University of Singapore N.1 Institute of Health. His work has been recognized with the Queen's Young Leader's Award and Tatler's Gen T List.
Janhavi Vaingankar
Deputy Director, Research Division, Institute of Mental Health
Ms Janhavi Vaingankar is a mental health researcher from Singapore with expertise in epidemiology and health services research. She has co-led several national surveys on the prevalence of mental disorders and barriers to care. Her research interests have gradually transitioned from studying mental disorders to understanding mental wellbeing from a public health perspective. Her research in the area of positive mental health has enabled the measurement of mental health domains that are relevant to multi-ethnic Asians. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Public Health with a focus on youth positive mental health where she delves deeper into the perspectives of teenagers and young adults from diverse backgrounds.
We will explore many perspectives including mental health, technology, culture, faith, law, policy, and more.
Stigma is highly prevalent in Asia-Pacific and prevents many from seeking help. In 2019, Singapore became the first Asian city to host the global “Together Against Stigma” conference, the world’s largest anti-stigma conference (see reference). In 2020, The Covid-19 Mental Wellness Taskforce was convened by the Ministry of Health and the Institute of Mental Health in Singapore to review the psycho-social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the population (see reference). In early March 2021, the Senior Minister of Health announced that the task force will become an inter-agency platform and help develop a post-pandemic national strategy for mental wellbeing (see reference). Please join us in supporting future directions for mental health in Singapore.
Background Reading
Religious Affiliation in Relation to Positive Mental Health and Mental Disorders in a Multi-Ethnic Asian Population
Authors: Janhavi Ajit Vaingankar, Niyanta Choudhary, Siow Ann Chong, Fiona Devi Siva Kumar, Edimansyah Abdin, Saleha Shafie, Boon Yiang Chua, Rob M. van Dam and Mythily Subramaniam
Published: Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(7), 3368; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18073368
HOPES: An Integrative Digital Phenotyping Platform for Data Collection, Monitoring, and Machine Learning
Authors: Xuancong Wang; Nikola Vouk; Creighton Heaukulani; Thisum Buddhika; Wijaya Martanto; Jimmy Lee; Robert JT Morris
Published: J Med Internet Res 2021;23(3):e23984 doi:10.2196/23984
Non-verbal speech cues as objective measures for negative symptoms in patients with schizophrenia
Authors: Yasir Tahir , Zixu Yang , Debsubhra Chakraborty, Nadia Thalmann, Daniel Thalmann, Yogeswary Maniam, Nur Amirah binte Abdul Rashid, Bhing-Leet Tan, Jimmy Lee Chee Keong, Justin Dauwels
Published: PLOS ONE April 2019 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214314
4 Singapore students launch hackathon to encourage mental health innovation
Author: Goh Ruoxue, The Straits Times
Published: 29 July 2021
Singapore: An International Model For Mental Health
Author: Garen Staglin, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Forbes
Published: 6 April 2021
Covid-19 mental health task force to look into post-pandemic needs, develop national strategy
Author: Timothy Goh
Published: 5 March 2021
New task force to tackle mental health needs of Singaporeans amid pandemic
Author: Rei Kurohi
Published: 11 October 2020
Challenges For Employers In Asia-Pacific: Stigma And Overwork
Author: Garen Staglin, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Forbes
Published: 9 Feb 2021