Percy A. Galimbertti
Research Scientist
Phone: (979) 862-5001
Dr. Percy A. Galimbertti joined the Texas A&M Health Science Center Rural and Community Health Institute as a research scientist. He holds an M.D. from the School of Medicine of the Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil, 1978) and Medical Residence in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. He also studied specialization in public Hhealth and earned a Master of Science (M.S.) in Sociology from the School of Social Sciences of the Catholic University of São Paulo. He graduated from the Ph.D. program in Political Economy (focus on Public Policies) at the School of Social Sciences of The University of Texas at Dallas.
During his career as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in Brazil, Dr. Galimbertti worked on clinical evaluation and treatment of children and adolescents with social and psychological disturbances and needs as a member of an interdisciplinary team. He was involved for the last 10 years in developing and implementing public mental health programs for a local government in Brazil, especially focusing on improving the quality of care delivered to psychiatric patients as well as emphasizing family and community involvement and awareness in the treatment of the mentally ill.
As director of the Mental Health Program for the Department of Health of the City of Londrina (Brazil), he managed a public mental health facility and supervised an interdisciplinary team of mental health professionals for several years. He is one of the founders and former vice president of the Associacão Londrinense de Saúde Mental (Mental Health Association of Londrina City), a Brazilian non-profit organization that congregates patients, families and mental health workers whose goal is the improvement of the quality of mental health services and the level of respect to the rights of the mentally ill.
His research interests are closely related to the improvement of the quality of life of undeserved populations, especially through access to better health care services and to higher education. As a doctoral student at The University of Texas at Dallas, Dr. Galimbertti participated in an ethnographic FIPSE-funded research project that studied the barriers faced by Hispanics living in Dallas area to access institutions of higher education and health care services. His doctoral dissertation studied the consequences of dropping out of school because of teenage pregnancy among students in Texas.
Dr. Galimbertti has expertise in qualitative and quantitative research methods applied to the evaluation of programs and research projects. He taught statistics at the School of Social Sciences of The University of Texas at Dallas and participated as a speaker in numerous international conferences on mental health, public health, sociology and social medicine. He has published a book making a sociological and cultural discussion of the temporary migration of Brazilian-Japanese who travel to work in Japan and the consequences of that experience in their mental health. The book is an adaptation of his master's degree dissertation in sociology on that subject (O Caminho que o Dekassegui Sonhou, Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo Press –Educ- and University of Londrina Press –Eduel-, 2002). He is also the author of a book chapter on policy-making processes of public mental health programs and several articles on mental health and the psychiatric reform published in the Brazilian media.
Before joining the HSC-Rural and Community Health Institute, Dr. Galimbertti held an honorary appointment as associate director of the prestigious Chess Program of The University of Texas at Dallas (2003-2004), where he is a guest research scholar at the Cecil and Ida Green Center for the Study of Science and Society.
