University of Worcester announce new research programme into rural mental health
The university has been awarded £2.2 million for the project
The University of Worcester says it is set to complete a new set of research aimed at investigating mental health inequalities across Herefordshire and Worcestershire.
£2.2 million has been awarded to the university to complete a five-year programme to understand the risks of poor mental health in rural communities.
Funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Mental Health Research Leader Award will allow the university to establish a new Rural Mental Health Research Unit.
Professor Eleanor Bradley is director of research in the university’s College of Health and Science and Principal Investigator on the programme, she says it will allow them to understand more about these issues.
She said: “The reason we need to do this research is to learn more about the experiences of people living across our rural communities, through new research designed to reflect their daily lives and experiences of mental ill-health.
This will enable us to develop our services locally, whilst understanding more about rurality as a risk to people’s mental health.
“We’ll be working very closely with our voluntary and community sectors because patient and public involvement is central to what we’re doing and this is about offering research to people who’ve previously been underserved by research.”
The programme will be delivered in partnership with the University of Birmingham’s Institute for Mental Health and regional health bodies, including the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board, the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, public health Teams, and primary care.
It will fund three new posts, including a professor of rural mental health, an associate professor of suicide prevention and a research fellow, as well as two PhD students each year.