Title: Centre for Society and Mental Health
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: 1. DEVELOP PIONEERING PROGRAMMES OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL RESEARCH ON KEY MENTAL HEALTH CHALLENGES FACING CONTEMPORARY SOCIETIES, IDENTIFIED AND CO-PRODUCED WITH AFFECTED COMMUNITIES, MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE USERS, AND STAKEHOLDERS: In the short-term (Centre funding years 1-5) to: establish a focal point for interdisciplinary, inter-institutional, conceptually-sophisticated, empirically-rich and practically-relevant social scientific research on the social determinants of mental health. 2. DEVELOP INNOVATIVE LINKED PROJECTS AND PROGRAMMES THAT RESHAPE UNDERSTANDING OF: I) RISING MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE; II) INCREASINGLY UNEQUAL RATES OF MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS, INCLUDING SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS, IN DISADVANTAGED COMMUNITIES; AND III) THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON MENTAL HEALTH OF TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE SECURITY OF WORK AND THE PROVISION OF WELFARE: In the short-term: understand the impact of the changing nature of childhood on mental health; identify stressors arising from urbanisation, migration and demographic transition that amplify or mitigate risk of mental health problems; understand the impact of changes in work and employment on mental health; analyse consequences of health, social, economic, labour market and educational policies on mental health, especially relating to inequality and social exclusion. 3. CREATE AND SUSTAIN NEW COLLABORATIONS AND ALLIANCES WITHIN KING'S COLLEGE LONDON AND WITH OUR KEY PARTNERS, WITH OTHER UKRI RESOURCES, AND WITH OTHER NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS, NETWORKS AND CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE: In the short-term: create a collaborative ecosystem for social research on mental health, nationally and internationally, that facilitates exchange between qualitative and quantitative social scientists, data scientists, geographers, social psychologists, social epidemiologists, anthropologists, neuroscientists, clinical psychiatrists and others. 4. PIONEER A NEW, FULL-PARTNERSHIP MODEL OF INTEGRATED, CONTINUAL WORKING WITH MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE USERS AND RELEVANT GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS, LOCAL AUTHORITIES, SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES, COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS, MENTAL HEALTH CHARITIES, AND SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICY MAKERS: In the short-term: work with mental health users, voluntary organisations and key stakeholders to identify relations, actions and policies that can enhance resilience to factors that cause mental health problems, and those that can mitigate consequences and facilitate recovery. 5. DEVELOP NOVEL CONCEPTS GROUNDED IN RELEVANT SOCIAL THEORY, SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE AND INNOVATIVE METHODS, BUILDING UNDERPINNING PLATFORMS FOR COMPARABLE WORK NATIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY: In the short-term: refine social theory on social stressors, social organisation, social policy, and mental health; develop innovative methods to investigate associations between mental states, social experiences, and spatial factors; refine the use of biological data to examine interrelationships between genes and social environments; develop innovative qualitative methods to deepen understanding of everyday social processes that impact on mental health; generate unique and extensive datasets through collection and by linking existing longitudinal and cohort data. 6. TRANSFORM RESEARCH CAPACITY THROUGH STRUCTURED PATHWAYS FOR PHD, POSTDOCTORAL AND EARLY CAREER RESEARCHER DEVELOPMENT, AND THROUGH EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROGRAMMES AND OPPORTUNITIES: In the short-term: equip a new generation of impact- and policy-literate interdisciplinary researchers with the knowledge, concepts, and methodologies to understand the social dimensions of mental health. 7. ESTABLISH THE CENTRE AS THE GO-TO SOURCE FOR OBJECTIVE, POLICY-RELEVANT INSIGHT AROUND MENTAL HEALTH, FOR GOVERNMENT, POLICY MAKERS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, THE MEDIA AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC: In the short-term: provide evidence-based pathways to impact that provide the basis for interventions in multiple locations; enhance public discourse on mental health.

Lay abstract: The ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health will bring about significant advancements in our understanding of how social, economic and cultural transformations affect mental health. Mental health is a priority for governments and policy makers, in areas ranging from economic productivity to community cohesion and individual wellbeing. It is also intrinsically social: the factors that promote mental health or lead to mental health problems lie in our societies, our schools, our workplaces, our communities, and in the nature of our contemporary social lives. The impacts of social contexts, inequalities, and experiences on mental health differ by social group and vary geographically. We are living through a period of rapid and far-reaching change, in our environments (physical, social, virtual), social organisation (including issues around urbanisation, cohesion, exclusion, marginalisation and disadvantage), technological change (and its impact on relationships and employment), and social policy in the contexts of education, work and welfare. Yet we do not know enough about which dimensions of our social, economic, cultural and personal lives affect our mental health, how, or by what means they might be modified. As such, we do not have evidence-based policies to address these challenges and to understand the nature and role of particular social and economic stressors on mental health, nor an understanding of the individual and social factors that enhance resilience. The Centre will bring together expertise across social science, epidemiology, psychiatry, neuroscience, patient and public involvement, and policy analysis, to ask: What are the consequences for mental health, positive and negative, of major contemporary social transformations? What social, economic and health policies can support improvements in individual and community resilience to mental health problems? We will pose, respond to and answer these and other key questions through coordinated programmes of theoretically-informed, empirically-evidenced, interdisciplinary research. These will be defined and delivered in partnership with affected communities, mental health service users, government departments, local authorities, schools and colleges, community organisations, mental health charities, and social and economic policy makers. We will collaborate with leading research groups working on these issues in other countries, and with existing UKRI-funded research infrastructure. We will evaluate existing interventions, apply novel concepts, and develop innovative methods for understanding the relationship between mental health and social experiences. The Centre will carry out programmes of research across three key areas where social, cultural and economic transformations have produced substantial challenges, and which could benefit from intervention: 1) rising mental health problems among young people; 2) increasingly unequal rates of mental health problems in disadvantaged communities; and 3) the negative effects on mental health of changes in the security of work and the provision of welfare. For each, we will seek to understand mental health trajectories (how problems develop over the life course), ecologies (how social and material environments influence outcomes), and vulnerabilities and resiliencies (why some individuals and groups in adverse social contexts experience mental health problems while others do not). Our research will identify the factors that amplify or attenuate the impact of social transformation on mental health, and the social, economic and health policies that can support mental health in individuals and populations. We will train a new generation of genuinely interdisciplinary social scientists equipped with the knowledge, the skills and commitments to help governments, policy makers and communities, not just to better support those with mental health problems, but to create mentally healthy societies for the future.

Research activity codes: 2.6 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (AETIOLOGY)
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH