Mental Health
Mental health and wellbeing is important to everyone and at all stages of life. It affects our quality of life and ability to cope with life’s challenges.
Public Mental Health (PMH) is a key focus of our research. Our PMH programmes seek to improve the mental health of people across England by promoting mental health and well-being as well as preventing mental illness.
What are the headlines?
- Self-esteem may play a role in the relationship between social media use and mental health
- Promoting positive body image and self-esteem among children could help to reduce poor mental health
- To support men’s mental health, we need to talk about wellbeing
- Self-reported symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress-related disorders were already on the rise even before the COVID-19 pandemic
- Poor social connectedness is a risk factor for poor mental health
How is our research making a difference?
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Charter for Public Involvement and Engagement – To ensure the public’s perspectives are integral to the research, decision-making processes, and programme outcomes we have co-developed principles for Public Involvement & Engagement.
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Working in partnership to produce our public mental health research – Peer researchers shared their experiences of mental health to co-produce research.
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Conceptual Framework for Public Mental Health – launch of a new web-based tool – Developed a tool to help improve people’s understanding of what has an impact on mental health.
What research are we currently doing?
Programme Overview
More than ever, research, policy and practice must address the mental health of populations. The Covid-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns have threatened many people’s mental health with bereavement, ill-health, social isolation, difficult or violent domestic relationships, and mounting anxiety…
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What research are we currently doing?
Improving mental health outcomes for disadvantaged young men: the role and efficacy of VCSE services in Northern England
Background The mental health of young people has deteriorated in the past five years in England and has been significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Young men report being less likely to discuss their mental health than women. Recent evidence shows that young people in the North of England display…
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What research are we currently doing?
‘Not in School’ – Characterising children and young people aged 5-16 years who are not in school and understanding their mental health-related needs to inform future public health intervention and policy
Background Children not attending school is a major public health concern which has received increasing attention since the Covid-19 pandemic. Persistent absence is defined as the proportion of pupils missing 19 days or more in a year. These numbers have increased from 1 in 10 pre-pandemic, to 1 in 5…
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What research are we currently doing?
Leveraging learning from COVID-19 adaptations to maximise the use of community digital assets and virtual spaces among marginalised populations
Introduction There is strong evidence that promoting mental health and preventing mental illness improves human, social, and economic capital. However, at any one time, mental disorders in the UK affect one in every six children and one in every six adults, at an overall annual cost of £70–100 billion a…
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What research are we currently doing?
Long-term evaluation and modelling of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of whole-school public mental health interventions
Aim This project aims to investigate the long-term, life course effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of whole-school approaches to improving the mental health of children and young people. We also aim to identify what works best, where and for whom. Background Mental health problems are increasing among children and young people in…
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What research are we currently doing?
How do educational and youth organisations support children and young people in relation to self-harm and suicide?
The Support systems for self-harm and Suicide (4S) study is a research project investigating how secondary schools, colleges and youth organisations in England deliver self-harm and suicide prevention, as well as support after a death by suicide. Phase 1 of the project – what we’ve done so far Phase…
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What research are we currently doing?
Maximising informal volunteering as a community resource to support the mental health and wellbeing of adults across the life course
Aim Our overall aim is to understand the role that informal volunteering can play in improving public mental health, reducing health inequalities, and strengthening social connectedness and community resilience among disadvantaged communities, and to formulate recommendations for implementation. Background Previous research has found a link between volunteering and good…
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What have we already provided evidence on?
Participatory Action Research toolkit launched – Participatory Action Research is an approach in which people collaboratively research their own experience or environment.
The importance of school culture in supporting student mental health in secondary schools – Increased understanding of the complex factors that impact student mental health.
Climbing temperatures and mental health – First review of its kind suggests increasing global temperatures and heat waves linked to climate change may be associated with poorer mental health.
Where can I find out more?
NIHR SPHR Public Mental Health Network
The NIHR SPHR Public Mental Health Network has been set up in response to the increase in demand and interest in public mental health research and how this is applied to every day practice. The Network aims to bring together researchers, public health professionals and members of the public to…
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Where can I find out more?
Public mental health across the life course
More than ever, research, policy and practice must address the mental health of populations. The Covid-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns have threatened many people’s mental health with bereavement, ill-health, social isolation, difficult or violent domestic relationships, and mounting anxiety relating to uncertain educational and economic futures. The cost-of-living crisis…
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Where can I find out more?
Blog: Who do you involve when researching public mental health?
Laura E. Fischer is the Public Involvement Coordinator and Researcher for a new programme of work in the NIHR School for Public Health Research that aims to understand and improve public mental health. Here she explains why recruiting a team of co-researchers based upon ‘expertise by experience’ is such a…
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Where can I find out more?
New research project to tackle ‘Social Frailty’ in older adults secures NIHR Three Schools funding after groundbreaking preliminary study
A research initiative exploring how to better identify and respond to ‘social frailty’ among older adults has successfully completed its development phase and secured funding for a major follow-on study through the NIHR Three Schools Prevention Research Programme. The development phase, “Putting the ‘Social’ into Frailty: Operationalising Social Frailty…
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