NIHRDataInsights/HRCSData huggingface dataset:
Title: Beyond self-report: a multi-method approach to characterising intolerance of uncertainty
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: On a daily basis we are confronted with uncertainty about the outcome of future events. In some uncertain situations we may be able to weigh up the options, predict the outcome, and make an informed choice, whilst in other uncertain situations we have very little information with which to make a judgement. Excessive stress in response to uncertainty is common in anxiety disorders. The term Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) refers to individual differences in anticipating and reacting to uncertainty, with those high in IU having a more negative reaction to uncertainty than those low in IU. Recent work suggests that understanding IU may be important for the diagnosis and treatment of anxiety disorders. Despite these recent advances, very little is understood about exactly how the processing of uncertainty differs in individuals who are low and high in IU, and how this is related to anxiety. The proposed programme of research will characterise how individuals high in IU differ from those low in IU when faced with uncertainty. Some of the questions that will be addressed are: 1. Do individuals with higher levels of IU have a broader threshold for detecting uncertainty in their environment than individuals low in IU? 2. Do individuals high in IU differ from those low in IU only when the uncertainty is associated with the potential for something bad to happen or is all uncertainty aversive? 3. Do individuals high in IU cope with uncertainty differently to those low in IU? Do they seek more information to enforce some certainty, or do they avoid uncertain situations altogether? To address these questions, the research will make use of state of the art technologies which will allow us to measure what captures people's attention and how they feel whilst they complete computer based tasks that emulate uncertain situations. This research has important implications for theories of anxiety and, importantly, by better understanding the nature of IU and how it is associated with anxiety, the research will help us to design new ways of intervening and treating people with anxiety disorders. This would improve the quality of life of the people in question and provide a benefit to society by decreasing the economic burden of long-term mental health problems.


Research activity codes: 1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES;2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: A framework for linking and sharing social media data for high-resolution longitudinal measurement of mental health across CLOSER cohorts
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Interactions on social media have the potential to help us to understand human behaviour, including the development of both good and poor mental health. However, to do the best science we need to know as much as possible about the people who are participating in our research. The CLOSER group of UK longitudinal cohorts include people who have contributed their data to research since birth. By inviting participants in these cohorts to also allow us to derive information from their social media feeds, we will be able to relate this information to gold-standard measures of the behaviours we are trying to understand and to world-class data on other aspects of life. To work out the best way to do this, our project will engage with participants in the Children of the '90s cohort to find out what is acceptable to them in terms of collecting and using their interactions on social media. We will use what we have learnt to develop software that collects and codes social media data in a way that protects the anonymity of participants by scoring Tweets without making the text available to researchers. We will share this software with other CLOSER cohorts to make it easy for them to invite participants to contribute their Twitter data in a safe and secure way. The high-resolution data collected in this way will help us to understand human behaviour and how mental health changes over time. Collecting these data in well known groups of people will also give scientists the information they need to improve the quality of all research using social media.


Research activity codes: 2.4 SURVEILLANCE AND DISTRIBUTION;2.5 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (AETIOLOGY)
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Harmonisation of mental health measures in British birth cohorts
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Major depression and anxiety disorders appear in the top 10 causes of global burden of disease, with major depression also being the second leading cause of disability worldwide and a major contributor to the burden of suicide and ischemic heart disease. The public health burden of these common psychological disorders is estimated to continue to increase. While the huge costs to society, and to the economy, of poor mental health are undisputed (4) and inequalities due to both social causation and selection are well documented, the idea that experiences of mental distress in adulthood are increasing across generations has not been much discussed, and yet if true as recent evidence suggests, is of major societal and population health significance, especially considering the effects of population ageing. Understanding the development of mental health symptoms over the life course and the investigation of secular mental health trends require comparable measures within and across cohorts, but with rare exceptions the measurement conditions that allow reliable comparisons have not been investigated.


Research activity codes: 2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS;2.5 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (AETIOLOGY)
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Poverty reduction, mental health and the chances of young people: understanding mechanisms through analyses from 6 low- and middle-income countries
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Poverty and mental health are closely linked. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), young people in poverty have a high risk of developing or maintaining mental health problems. The stress and environmental conditions associated with poverty increase the risk of mental health problems. Additionally, the disability and high costs faced by people with mental illness can maintain poverty. Currently, most evaluations of antipoverty interventions focus on socioeconomic or general well-being outcomes, but rarely examine the effects on mental health. At the same time, the main focus in the field of global mental health has been to improve access to treatment, but with little focus on the impact of interventions on future life chances and poverty. This study aims to (1) understand the mental health impact of antipoverty policies and (2) how mental health interventions influence the life chances and risk of poverty amongst young people. To do this, we will use multiple interdisciplinary methods to understand the costs and the impact of potential interventions and associated pathways to improved life chances. We will analyse seven different datasets from six low- and middle-income countries. We will also collect qualitative data from interviews and focus groups with young people from economically deprived circumstances. Qualitative data will provide information on: (i) experiences and meaning of poverty and mental health problems, (ii) personal experiences of being involved in antipoverty programmes or receiving mental health interventions, (iii) challenges or barriers to engaging with the antipoverty and mental health interventions and (iv) ideas for future interventions. Additionally, from the start of the project, we will work together with community members: young people from deprived circumstances, service users, health practitioners and policymakers. Workshops will help us to gather insights into how our findings can be used to develop and test new interventions, for example by combining mental health and poverty programmes. Mental health problems are common among young people from economically deprived circumstances in LMICs and it is known that experience of poverty and mental health problems can have long lasting effects into adulthood. Providing more effective intervention during this period could be help reduce the impact of poverty and / or prevent mental health problems early in life, thus increasing future life chances, including opportunities for education and employment.


Research activity codes: 8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Development & validation of a scalable mobile platform for screening of developmental neuropsychiatric disorders in low-resource settings
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) emerge early and persist throughout life, contributing significantly to global years lived with disability. Typically, ASD diagnosis depends on clinical diagnostic assessments by highly trained professionals. This high resource demand poses a challenge in resource-limited areas where skilled personnel are scarce and public literacy and awareness of neurodevelopmental symptoms are low. The resulting delay or outright absence of diagnosis obstructs the community-based, parent-mediated interventions that promise to improve outcomes. Closing this detection gap will depend on task-shifting from scarce experts to more plentiful community health workers, via scalable screening tools usable in the community and with only minimal training. Specifically, this project aims to: 1. Develop a mobile platform incorporating parent report and child performance based assessment methods for detection of ASD, delivered by non-specialist health workers in community-based settings; and 2. Create a data transfer, storage, and analysis pipeline, which will enable subsequent combination of data streams from large-scale studies, to build and optimise probabilistic classifiers for estimating ASD risk and guiding referral to specialised diagnostic clinics and appropriate care pathways during translation to scale; and 3. Evaluate the usability, utility, and validity of the platform by pilot-testing in ~120 children and parents in and around Delhi (equal numbers of typically developing, DSM-5-diagnosed ASD, and non-ASD children with Intellectual disability (ID)). These objectives will be achieved by an interdisciplinary team of public health researchers, clinicians, computer scientists, software designers and developers, and neuroscientists from UK and India. This robust international partnership will form the programmatic basis of a long-term research effort translating neuroscience into community health in low-resource settings.


Research activity codes: 4.2 EVALUATION OF MARKERS AND TECHNOLOGIES
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Developing low-cost cognitive tools for dementia assessment in low-to-middle income countries (LMICs)
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Cost of, and restricted access to, brain scanning (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging [MRI]; positron emission tomography [PET]) limits use of imaging for dementia diagnosis in LMICs; rapid advances in mobile digital technology, alongside new knowledge about the earliest cognitive changes in dementias, could provide a solution to this problem, enabling much-needed, easily accessible, well-validated and low cost cognitive assessments for dementia. The proposed Foundation Award will catalyse a programme of work focused on development and validation of cheap, offline web and tablet cognitive assessment for dementia at Cardiff University, delivered by working in partnership with researchers from Ireland and the US (including the Institutional leads for the Global Brain Health Institute, GBHI), Cuba and China. Two major outcomes will be delivered: (1) development and piloting of novel tablet-based cognitive assessments aimed to support provision of more individualised, and accurate, dementia assessment in LMICs, thereby allowing patients to benefit from enhanced health guidance and appropriate support infrastructure; and (2) a new research network, encompassing experts from both LMIC and high-income countries (HICs), focused on the generation of novel cognitive assessment tools for dementia as an alternative to more expensive, and often unavailable, technologies, and enhancing acess to these across the globe informed by the needs of patients and clinicians in LMICs.


Research activity codes: 4.4 POPULATION SCREENING
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Measuring Brain Network Dynamics Using Magnetoencephalography: Methods Development and Applications in Schizophrenia
Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Abstract: The last decade has seen a shift in focus in neuroimaging, from the study of discrete functional regions to the identification of large scale networks. Such networks are of fundamental importance to neuroscience: network connectivity is key to healthy brain function and altered in many neuro-pathologies. Most network studies employ fMRI, however being based on haemodynamics, fMRI cannot elucidate the electrophysiological mechanisms underlying connectivity. However, recent developments allow independent measurement of established networks using MEG. These monitor electrical brain activity directly via assessment of the magnetic fields induced by neural currents. The purpose of this grant is to realise the unique potential of MEG as a means to examine networks, and to gain a fundamentally new understanding of the nature of network connectivity in health and disease. I will develop novel ways to measure, and understand the relationship between, the wide range electrophysiological effects observable from a single brain region. In addition I will develop entropic transforms of electrical signals as a new means to characterise local brain activity. Building upon this, I will develop new ways to measure intrinsic modes of functional coupling between regions including: i) methods to characterise linear and non-Iinear coupling and ii) measurement of dynamic changes in functional connectivity. Electrophysiological activity and connectivity is mediated by neurochemistry, and using parallel ultra-high field magnetic resonance spectroscopy, I will relate the concentration of neurotransmitters (glutamate/GABA) to electrophysiological metrics in MEG. Finally these metrics will be applied in a human model of schizophrenia, (schizotypy) in order to gain new insight into how impaired network activity and connectivity underlies the core symptoms associated with schizophrenia.


Research activity codes: 2.1 BIOLOGICAL AND ENDOGENOUS FACTORS;2.5 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (AETIOLOGY)
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Development of Methodological Guidance for the Coproduction of Health Interventions: Targeting wellbeing in secondary schools to prevent mental health issues.
Funder: Health and Care Research Wales (Welsh Government)

Abstract: In Wales, policy (Together for Mental Health) highlights wellbeing as a prevention priority. A high prevalence of mental health issues begin before 15 shifting the prevention agenda to adolescence. Secondary schools are a key setting to intervene due to reach in the population, their duty to contribute to student wellbeing, and because young people through the Young Wales Project have prioritised wellbeing support in schools. School-based wellbeing interventions with no stakeholder involvement that use interventions with fixed components have shown limited effectiveness on mental health, demonstrating a need for alternative intervention development methodologies. Co-production – a process where stakeholders are supported to follow a standardised process to generate health interventions tailored to local contexts – has been successful for other school-based intervention development. However, what makes co-production successful is unknown so guidance is needed. This project will fill guidance and wellbeing intervention gaps through: Synthesising co-production school-based health interventions literature to develop an initial co-production theory; Consulting teachers to refine initial theory and develop co-production training based on the theory. Training will be piloted with young people; Conducting case study research to further refine co-production theory and understand wellbeing in schools. The PhD student will train four teachers and four students from three secondary schools (n-24) in co-production and support them to follow a co-production process. They will produce intervention action plans through developing action groups that explore what factors effect wellbeing and how to intervene. The data set will be audio recordings and field notes of training and action group meetings, action plans, and post-intervention semi-structured interviews with trained stakeholders, and focus groups with action groups. This project contributes to wellbeing through comparing co-produced interventions with the evidence base to determine gaps, but the project will have wider applicability by utilising refined theory to produce co-production guidance.


Research activity codes: 4.1 DISCOVERY AND PRECLINICAL TESTING OF MARKERS AND TECHNOLOGIES;4.2 EVALUATION OF MARKERS AND TECHNOLOGIES
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Co-producing an intervention to improve care for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A cross-disciplinary mixed-methods study
Funder: Health and Care Research Wales (Welsh Government)

Abstract: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are complex life-long conditions. Very few interventions to help children with ASD exist. In the updated ASD Strategic Action Plan, the Welsh Government commits to “support children young people and adults with ASD throughout their lives” by delivering a “national integrated autism services “. However, it is difficult to get services like health and education to work together well. This PhD will fill this research gap by: Looking at the literature on how existing services (what we refer to as pathways of care) for ASD and other related conditions are organised; Talking to and watching families, teachers and health professionals who work with primary school children with ASD, to understand how services work at the moment; Working with families, teachers and ASD health professions to design and assess an intervention together, to support greater team work across the two services. The supervisors for this PhD proposal are members of the Autism Collaborative Research group, (ACRe). The work in the proposal is based on pilot work that they have done in the past. The group already have links with families, teachers, and health professionals, and these groups will be involved in the design and conduct of the research from the start. The also have links with key ASD policy makers within Wales. The planned integrated autism service for Wales is launching in 2019. Research to promote improved team working is therefore timely and essential. This research will be of benefit to the new service by testing a better way for professions and organisations to work together to support children with ASD and their families..


Research activity codes: 7.3 MANAGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING;2.4 SURVEILLANCE AND DISTRIBUTION
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Making the invisible visible: Using lived experiences of severe mental illness around childbirth to co-produce tools for individualised pregnancy planning
Funder: Health and Care Research Wales (Welsh Government)

Abstract: Bipolar disorder is a severe and common condition, affecting around 3 in every 100 people. It is characterised by episodes of high mood (mania) and low mood (depression). For women with bipolar disorder, 4 to 5 in every 10 are at risk of having an episode of illness in pregnancy or following childbirth (called the perinatal period). Women are 23 times more likely to be admitted to psychiatric hospital with an episode of bipolar disorder in the month following childbirth than at any other time in their life. These illness episodes can impact on the lives of women and their families, disrupting the relationship with the new baby. Women with bipolar disorder, therefore, have very difficult decisions to make about pregnancy. These include stopping, switching or continuing medications with all of these options having potential risks and benefits. Work from our group has shown that women have great difficulty in getting the information they need and in working with clinical services to develop a plan for pregnancy and the postpartum period. In this project we will work with Action on Postpartum Psychosis (www.app-network.org), the leading 3rd sector organisation in this area, and women with lived experience to develop and test a “Collaborative Guide” to aid co-production and joint decision making. This will enable women at high risk to take an enhanced role in planning their pregnancy and postpartum period. We will disseminate the guide through APP directly to women, enabling them to work with their health care professionals to tailor plans to their specific social situation and individual illness and treatment history. This project will help women make decisions about becoming pregnant, reduce their risk of becoming unwell in the perinatal period, and improve their access to care if they experience an episode of illness.


Research activity codes: 7.3 MANAGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING;7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Caring for people who have dementia in Community Hospitals: A longitudinal ethnographic study of healthcare workers’ everyday decision-making.
Funder: Health and Care Research Wales (Welsh Government)

Abstract: Historically, the community hospital was viewed as a healthcare venue for intermediate or step down care, rehabilitation for those who were patients in the acute service and were intending to return to their community. This demographic of patient has changed over the past decade with the community hospital now accommodating a significantly increasing number of older people, with greater acuity, who may also have dementia and who are staying for longer periods in such healthcare institutional environments. Recent concerns have been raised for example by the Francis report (2013) about fundamental issues related to older people in society who as ‘patients’ in the National Health Service are experiencing ‘poor’ care. Moreover, as people who have dementia are particularly vulnerable when making a transition from the acute sector of service, their social needs are as much of a priority as their clinical needs. For this reason, the healthcare workers involved in caring for these people in the community hospital are facing a significant challenge in responding to change in the way they practice.


Research activity codes: 8.2 HEALTH AND WELFARE ECONOMICS;2.2 FACTORS RELATING TO PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH