Between 2017–2022, the National Institute for Health Research’s School for Public Health Research (SPHR) Public Mental Health Programme delivered high quality research that helped us better understand public mental health at the current time. We studied the forces and factors that influence people’s mental health, asked which outcomes best allow us to assess impact and track progress at the population level, and identified which interventions show the most promise for improving the mental health of the public.
Building on this groundwork and using the School’s PMH conceptual model as a backdrop, we are developing an exciting programme for our next five years of work within SPHR’s Public Mental Health Programme. This new series of projects will identify effective – and cost effective – ways to improve public mental health across the life course.
We will focus on strengthening the settings or systems in which people live and work – communities, schools and the workplace – to maximise the prevention of poor mental health, and support those who are experiencing difficulties.
With academic expertise and leadership from all nine institution members of SPHR, we will work with practice and public partners to deliver research that provides evidence with immediate application across settings. Our projects will consider the whole life course, from young to old, with a specific focus on those groups that are most at risk of poor mental health outcomes and inequalities.
This will be an ambitious package of work, examining scalable, efficient ways to draw on community assets and resources that are supportive of mental health for different age groups.
