Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Vittorio Ferrada-Noli is a Swedish medicine doktor and Professor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences. He was formerly Professor in Epidemiology and in International Health at the University of Gävle, and Head of the Research group of International and Cross-cultural Injury Epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet.
He earned his PhD in Psychiatry at the Karolinska Institutet and was thereafter Research Fellow and Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. During his stay at Harvard he published most of the research discoveries below, judged "pioneer contribution to epidemiological research" (Academic awards).
Biography
Marcello Ferrada-Noli was born in Chile 25 July 1943, in family of Italian descent rooted in Genoa. Father company owner and former comissioned officer in the Carabineers, and mother university professor. He had originally academic education in Philosophy, had became Full Professor of Psychology at age 27 (University of Chile, Arica, 1970) and he was Full Professor at the University of Concepción at the time of Augusto Pinochet's 1973 Chilean coup d'état.
One founder of MIR back in 1965, in the aftermath of the resistance to the military coup of 1973 Marcello Ferrada-Noli became imprisoned in Quiriquina Island Prisoners Camp. After his liberation he stayed as Geneva Convention exiled in Sweden. In 1974 he was member of the Russell Tribunal Scientific Secretariat in Rome , which investigated human rights violations in Chile and Latin America. In 1998, being Professor at the University of Tromso in Norway, he publicly demanded the extradition of Pinochet, at the time in London, to stand trial in Scandinavia for the disappearance under captivity of his friends Bautista Van Schouwen and Edgardo Enríquez .
Research
Ferrada-Noli found several indicators (psychiatric and epidemiological markers) of heightened [...] behaviour in cross-cultural settings . One was the high associations discovered 1998 between PTSD diagnose and history of injury-related severe trauma, such us torture under captivity, in the mechanism of [...] methods . Other findings referred to heightened prevalence of [...] behaviour associated to PTSD psychiatric co-morbidity , particularly late-onset PTSD (2004) . He had previously reported (1996) PTSD clinical symptoms being more determinant of [...] behaviour than cultural differences among traumatised refugees .
Another discovery was the over-representation of immigrants in the epidemiology of [...] in Sweden. The phenomenom was first reported by Ferrada-Noli in 1990 as statistical tendency , and later, in 1994, by establishing high significant statistical over-representations which demonstrated that immigrant status is a risk factor for [...] deaths in Sweden . In a nation-wide study of 1996 he reported the Relative risk estimate for immigrant suicides in Sweden as a whole (1.5 more times than for a native Swede) . Being foreign-born immigrants fourteen percent of the Swedish population, the finding had also a political relevance and called for reforms. This was heightened when in a later investigation (1997) Ferrada-Noli et al demonstrated that, compared with native Swedes, less immigrants who have died of [...] have sought help for their [...] crisis; and that among those immigrants that did seek help at psychiatric emergency services, significantly less were admitted for further treatment, compared with native Swedes .
Further, he is credited for several findings on the negative impact of poverty and unfavourable socioeconomic indicators in the incidence of [...]. This research publications series included the empirically-based rebuttal in 1997 of the socioeconomic hypothesis of [...] incidence (Émile Durkheim,1897) and which had prevailed during one hundrerd years . He is also credited for the identification of a new diagnostic category among [...] behaviours (Metasuicide, referred to violent deaths in which self-inflicted lethal intent is deliberately concealed) .
Academic awards
In June 30, 2005, Marcello Ferrada-Noli received in Cuba the academic distinction Profesor Invitado of the Instituto Superior de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana, motivated "for his dedication and commitment to the betterment of human life" and among other, “For his pioneer contribution to epidemiological research, in special his international studies on the phenomenon of [...] among immigrants and refugees". In the Elogio académico accompanying the diploma were also listed his principal research findings. March 14, 2006, by the Medical Faculty of the University of Chile, ad-honorem appointment Profesor Agregado at the School of Public Health "in merit to the collaboration that you given to educational programs at the medical school". Received the academic award Mención al Mérito by the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León for among other his book Teoría y Método de la Concientización published in Mexico 1972. Finally, upon retirement, he received at the Swedish University of Gävle the "title of distinction" Professor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences "in value of Meritorious academic services" (1 July 2007).
Marcello Ferrada-Noli retired from academic activities 2008. His last input to international and cross-cultural psychiatric epidemiology was as contributor author in the Oxford Textbook of Suicidology.. At present he is a permanent resident of Italy.