The University of Essex is building a mental health research programme from scratch, starting with a stakeholder group of local residents and services to identify the most pressing inequalities in their coastal communities. This matters because mental health outcomes in coastal towns like those in Essex are among the worst in England, yet applied research capacity there has been minimal. The award funds a post-doctoral researcher to analyse the UK Household Longitudinal Survey for local patterns of mental distress across protected characteristics—such as ethnicity, disability, and age—and has already produced two journal papers, lay summaries, and a presentation to the Essex County Council Health and Wellbeing Board. If successful, this work will shift how local health and social care services target resources. The team is now embedded in the council’s mental health implementation strategy group, meaning research findings can directly shape commissioning decisions. The university has also established a Centre for Coastal Communities and a new Institute for Public Health and Wellbeing, creating the infrastructure to sustain applied mental health research long-term. The project is not fundamental science—it is designed to produce actionable evidence for a specific population.
View original technical description
Current research infrastructure As part of the NIHR ARC East of England (ARC EoE) 3-year mental health (MH) capacity building programme, UoE has been working with ~£133k to begin developing capacity in applied MH research. This award supports McPherson (0.05FTE until October 2024), a post-doc (0.4FTE until March 2026) and 1 PhD studentship. With this award we established a MH research stakeholder group to identify local research priorities which were focused on identifying and tackling MH inequalities across protected characteristics and wider determinants. We trained our post-doc to undertake secondary data analysis of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey ("Understanding Society") to identify local, regional and national MH inequalities across protected characteristics producing two journal papers (under review), lay summaries and a presentation to Essex County Council (ECC) Health and Wellbeing Board. We held a well-attended engagement and dissemination event in a community venue in June 2024 and are now involved with the ECC mental health implementation strategy group, putting us in a strong position to scale up applied MH research in partnership with our local community. Further capacity at UoE is found in the small staff team supporting the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (DClinPsych) programme including Trotta (Co-I) and one other clinical psychologist on teaching and research contracts both with a notional 20% of time for research. In addition, a project team not aligned to ARC EoE recently won NIHR policy research funding for an RCT of a nature-based intervention (angling) for veterans with PTSD. In terms of infrastructure relating to applied health research more broadly, our School of Health and Social Care (SHSC) has expanded its teaching and research staff volume from 6 to 39 since 2020. These staff have a notional 20% of their time for research and include pockets of expertise in applied health e.g. public involvement in health; neuro-rehabilitation; global public health. UoE opened a research institute (Institute for Public Health and Wellbeing, IPHW) in 2022 providing 2 core-funded senior leadership roles (Director, Deputy Director) to support public health and applied health research across the university; and provide pan-institutional infrastructure to enable interdisciplinary health research. IPHW currently employs 15 funded research fellows and has developed a mentorship structure for the development and sustainability of health research careers. IPHW associates across UoE have a range of expertise relevant to applied health such as behavioural science, data science, data modelling, statistical methods, epidemiology, AI, machine learning and qualitative research. IPHW has enabled enhanced relationships with the local health and social care sector and houses two new research centres: the Centre for Global Public Health and Intersectional Equity; and the Centre for Coastal Communities, the latter highly relevant to our applied MH research agenda and directed by Co-I Murray. Motivation UoE has an emerging interdisciplinary network of MH researchers including law, brain science, epidemiology, sports and exercise science, psychosocial studies. These provide a theoretical context for developing applied MH research. We are highly motivated to do so, particularly in the context of our growing partnership with the local sector, the establishment of our Centre for Coastal Communities and our increased contact with stakeholders through our ARC EoE funded MH research stakeholder group. We are keen to push forward plans to work with the health and social care sector to address the needs of the local population particularly in relation to MH inequalities and specifically to address the high levels of mental distress in our coastal towns. McPherson (PI) has recently been appointed as Deputy Director of IPHW, reflecting an institutional commitment to see MH at the heart of our ongoing expansion and development into
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know