NIHRDataInsights/HRCSData huggingface dataset:
Title: Co-developing a social exergaming platform to help older adults with mild memory problems maintain functional independence
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: By the end of the award, we plan to have a prototype for a user-friendly hub for intergenerational gaming in the home. Its purpose would be to delay the point at which people living with dementia (PWD) lose functional independence, delay their move into assisted living, and, through the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, reduce all-cause mortality. Beyond the award, we would continue product testing and development, and explore marketing strategies. The final product is likely to be delivered as a social enterprise, for which the Co-I will be a co-founder with MEMO360 Ltd. The PI's role would be to ensure that the route to commercialising the product allows it to be provided free or cheaply to PWD. The PI is connected with NHS commissioners and digital health platforms (e.g., ORCHA) and are exploring routes to implement digital healthcare products (including the current product) in a free or low-cost manner for the end-user.

Lay abstract: For people living with dementia (PWD) the eventual loss of independence is a certainty. The question is not if, but when PWD will lose independence and need assistance to accomplish even simple tasks. Losing independence causes severe emotional distress to PWD, their families, and friends. It is taxing to the physical and mental health of loved ones who provide unpaid care, and costs the UK economy over £29 billion per year. Our goal is to help people with mild dementia remain independent for as long as possible as we believe it is still possible to live well, and age well, throughout the dementia journey. We know that staying physically active, cognitively stimulated, and socially engaged can keep people with mild dementia independent for longer. With PWD as co-creators, we will take a holistic approach and design video games that promote a balanced lifestyle. Using motion capture technology, the games would promote physical activity, be cognitively stimulating, and can be played socially with others. In the short term, this should delay the point at which PWD lose independence, delay their move into assisted living, and promote general wellbeing. In the long-term, these games could delay or prevent many age-associated clinical disorders, aid clinical professionals in diagnosing and managing diverse conditions, and promote independence and wellbeing in older adults diagnosed with varied clinical conditions. Through the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, these games should reduce all-cause mortality. Together, these outputs will reduce the individual and societal costs associated with loss of independence.

Research activity codes: 7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Exploring How to Use Mixed Reality & Telepresence Technology to Tackle Loneliness and Reduce Feelings of Social Isolation
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: [1] Develop a deep and broad understanding of the complex factors driving feelings of loneliness and isolation across a sample of the UK population; [2] Understand the role mixed reality and telepresence technology (MRTT) may play in influencing factors derived and specified in [1] to reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation; [3] Deliver concepts and wireframe prototype experiences which demonstrate with examples how MRTT can address [2] [4] Lay the foundation for future grant submissions to expand the concepts from [3] into working systems [5] Establish an evidence based community interest company to commercialize concepts from [3] and working prototypes from [4]

Lay abstract: In the UK, it is estimated that around 1.5 million aged 50 and over suffer from chronic loneliness, and 40% of older people say the television is their only company. These numbers are continually rising, putting a strain on social services such as the NHS, as well as other relatives who want the best for their loved ones. How is loneliness still a problem today, in a world dominated by 'social' media, where we have so many tools and technologies to connect with one another? The answer may lie in the shallow experience of connectedness these technologies provide. Connectedness is about more than just being connected. It requires a shared understanding, the chance to socialize, agency and independence, and to share meaningful experiences and interact with other human beings. Through co-design workshops, low-fi prototypes, and user studies, this work will explore how mixed reality and telepresence-technology which lets us combine the real and digital worlds-may help establish deep relationships to relieve loneliness.

Research activity codes: 3.1 PRIMARY PREVENTION INTERVENTIONS TO MODIFY BEHAVIOURS OR PROMOTE WELL-BEING
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: SCDA - Bridging the gap for services: developing an Autism and Homelessness Toolkit and Training Package
Funder: Autistica

Abstract: Autistic individuals are at high risk for experiencing homelessness, and often face multiple barriers to resolving their homelessness. The low level of autism awareness by service providers has been identified as a key barrier to accessing and engaging with homelessness and social care services. Our long-term objective is to increase access to services for autistic individuals through staff autism training; with the ultimate aim of reducing periods of homelessness. This proposed project provides an integral step to meeting this objective, by conducting a series of workshops to bring together a multidisciplinary team of experts. These workshops will synthesise evidence to inform the development of an Autism and Homelessness Toolkit and training package, and a framework for its evaluation, for their implementation in the next stage of research. These proposed activities, based within a co-production framework, will provide the much needed ground-work for a high_x0002_quality NIHR RfSC grant application in 2022/23.

Lay abstract: A seed funding project to further develop an autism and homelessness toolkit to support services to provide improved support to autistic homeless people. Project will develop a community and professional informed proposal to the NIHR RfSC.

Research activity codes: 8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Sara King AG (Charles Sharland)
Funder: Autistica

Abstract: What do maternity services do now to support autistic women as service users; what do they need to do to improve?

Lay abstract: What do maternity services do now to support autistic women as service users; what do they need to do to improve?

Research activity codes: 7.3 MANAGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Celia Fell AG (Charles Sharland)
Funder: Autistica

Abstract: What difficulties do autistic adults commonly have with activities of daily living that are assessed for disability benefits, and how do these relate to known cognitive, motor, sensory, or other known difficulties associated with autism?

Lay abstract: What difficulties do autistic adults commonly have with activities of daily living that are assessed for disability benefits, and how do these relate to known cognitive, motor, sensory, or other known difficulties associated with autism?

Research activity codes: 7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Speech and Language Therapy Workforce: The lived experiences of clinicians whoare autistic and/or bilingual
Funder: Autistica

Abstract: Project exploring the evidence regarding appropriate SaLT assessment and intervention with multilingual autistic children, and investigating how evidence and practitioner knowledge can be integrated to improve outcomes. PhD co-funded with ESRC - Student Mélanie Gréaux

Lay abstract: Project exploring the evidence regarding appropriate SaLT assessment and intervention with multilingual autistic children, and investigating how evidence and practitioner knowledge can be integrated to improve outcomes. PhD co-funded with ESRC - Student Mélanie Gréaux

Research activity codes: 7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS;7.3 MANAGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Redefining disability: Integrating intellectual disabilities into the Global Report on Disability and Health with WHO
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: The applicant will collaborate with the World Health Organisation (WHO) Disability Unit in the Non-Communicable Disease department and the Mental Health Department, to research and contribute to the next WHO Global Report on Disability and Health. She will conduct a scoping review of the global health of people with an intellectual disability and write case studies, in relation to; 1. Availability and accessibility of health services 2. Consideration of the needs of people with an intellectual disability in emergency planning (eg virus outbreaks) 3. The impact of public health campaigns on people with an intellectual disability and 4. The quality of the data we collect about people with an intellectual disability. The World Health Assembly resolution May 2021 will set the agenda on health and disability for WHO Member states for the majority of the next decade. The project provides the opportunity to be part of the team researching and writing the Global Report on Disability and Health and developing the recommendations that will have a global influence, while leading on the work about people with an intellectual disability. The team will collaborate on a peer reviewed publication and support the researcher’s networking and integration into WHO.

Lay abstract: People with an intellectual disability experience serious health inequalities and they are often overlooked when healthcare research and planning takes place. I plan to work with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to look at the status of people with an intellectual disability in healthcare globally. I will be looking at data from around the world to map their health in four key areas; 1. Availability and accessibility of health services 2. Consideration of the needs of people with an intellectual disability in emergency planning (eg virus outbreaks) 3. The impact of public health campaigns on people with an intellectual disability and 4. The quality of the information we collect about people with an intellectual disability. I will use this research to contribute to a Global Report on Disability and Health with WHO. The report will make recommendations for changes to improve the health of people with an intellectual disability.

Research activity codes: 8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: The State of the World's Children 2021 Focus Groups
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: UNICEF proposes multi-country focus groups to gather insights on young people’s mental health and well-being. This reflects our and Wellcome Trust’s mutual commitment to engaging youth as partners in the design and implementation of action research that affects them. The proposed research will be featured in UNICEF’s flagship State of the World’s Children report, ensuring that the knowledge, expertise, and lived experiences of young people are part of the global dialogue on research, policy, and programming priorities. Key research questions include: 1. How do adolescents perceive and understand mental health, both positive and negative? 2. What are the key emotional and behavioral challenges facing adolescents in communities around the world, and what do they identify as risk and protective factors? 3. What are the positive and harmful ways adolescent are coping with mental health problems? 4. What are the barriers and reinforcing factors to their help-seeking behavior? 5. What are adolescent ideas and solutions around structural, community, peer, and self-care approaches to mental health promotion, prevention, and support? This research will create opportunities both for promoting positive youth development as well as increase youth voice in the scientific study and body of evidence around mental health of young people.


Research activity codes: 7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Living in a World of Voices: An Interdisciplinary Investigation of non-Clinical Voice-Hearers in Context
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: A growing body of psychological research has identified a population of individuals who hear voices outside of the context of pathology. These “non-clinical” voice-hearers have been the subject of a variety of studies aimed at understanding their relationship with clinical voice-hearers. This research, which often relies on standardized psychological measures, fails to explore the broader context in which these experiences occur. non-clinical participants are often recruited from spiritual communities who accept anomalous experiences and offer meaningful frameworks in which to understand them. The proposed research will address this gap in the literature. Drawing on theory and methodology from anthropology, psychology, and philosophy this research will explore the ways in which the voice-hearing experiences of these individuals are shaped by the larger contexts of their lives. In particular it will seek to understand the ways in which community attitudes towards anomalous experience such as voice-hearing may impact appraisals of these experiences.

Lay abstract: Although "hearing voices," is often seen as a sign of severe psychological illness, there are many individual who hear voices without them being associated with any kind of disorder. Hearing voices generally causes such people little to no distress and may even be an enjoyable, meaningful aspect of their lives. These individuals are of increasing interest to the psychological community and many hope that learning more about "healthy voice hearers," could lead to new forms of treatment for those for whom voice-hearing is associated with illness and causes distress. This research is important, but it often overlooks contextual factors, particularly the fact that many non-clinical voice hearers are part of spiritual communities which accept and encourage these experiences. My research seeks to understand how hearing voices fits in with other aspects of these individuals' lives, such as their spiritual beliefs and their relationships with their communities.

Research activity codes: 1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Changing minds: mapping out the bioethical dimensions of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy is likely to become a licensed treatment in the US within two years. However, clinically-relevant doses have a number of surprising ‘side-effects’: they can cause long-term changes to political values and personality, increase prosociality and aesthetic appreciation, and induce mystical experiences of long-lasting spiritual significance connected to changes in religious belief. These changes remain under-researched but challenge several ethical concepts, including authenticity and autonomy, beneficence, and informed consent. The project will begin by systematically reviewing the non-clinical changes reported in the empirical literature to develop a conceptual analysis of these changes within a medical ethics framework. In addition, the perspectives of patients and practitioners of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy concerning these changes remain unknown, and they are not addressed either in the informed consent process or in therapist training manuals. As such, the project’s second stage will use qualitative empirical methods to provide an account of their experiences and understanding of these changes. Together, the two elements of the project will demonstrate how psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy challenges orthodox conceptualisations of psychiatry, which marginalise spirituality and experiences of awe, as well as requiring policymakers such as NICE and their National Collaborating Centres to revise their approach to foreseen-but-unintended consequences of treatment.

Lay abstract: The medicinal use of psychedelic drugs is currently being trialled in mental health treatment, but has a number of challenging ‘side-effects’ which go well beyond those typically witnessed with new medicines. Following psychedelic drug administration, people can become more prosocial, and undergo long-lasting changes to religious belief, personality and political values - facets which many take to be central to their identity. However, no sustained investigation of ethical dimensions of these ‘side-effects’ has taken place. After developing a theoretical account of these changes within the framework of medical ethics, I will refine that work by conducting novel empirical work investigating how patients and practitioners experience and understand these changes, and their relation to the therapeutic process. The project will not only motivate a reevaluation of the role of spirituality in psychiatry, but also challenge the traditional distinction between therapy and enhancement in medicine, with implications for policymakers setting clinical guidance.

Research activity codes: 8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: What is internet addiction: Re-thinking the digital and addiction in relation to each other
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: This proposal is for a year-long ethnography of an internet addiction rehabilitation centre in rural Washington State. It will develop an anthropological understanding of internet addiction, the study of which has so far been limited to neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry. This will allow the cultural, social, and systemic background to the condition to be revealed. The ethnography will be phenomenological, exploring the changes in the experience of space and time that rapid withdrawal from the digital causes – putting the living body at the centre of study. I will do this with the aim of establishing how use of the digital changes the experience of everyday life, explaining internet addiction through these changes. I will also ask whether the experience of extreme cases is shared by ordinary users. I will investigate whether the condition can be used to denaturalise the broader category of addiction, unpacking and challenging suppositions established in the study of addiction and mental health. As well as generating new knowledge and raising awareness, I will assist in the formation of patient groups, as well as supporting charities and healthcare facilities dealing with the condition. I will also aim to persuade healthcare services to fully recognise the condition.

Lay abstract: Internet addiction has attracted significant public concern, but remains poorly understood. I will spend a year living in an internet addiction rehabilitation centre in the US to document the lives of the people who live with it, but also to understand the internet's effect on all of us. I will ask what being online does do to embodied experience that causes it to become the object of compulsion, and question how far this embodied experience is shared by all of its users. And I will investigate what the social and cultural context of extreme internet use is. I will also ask, does internet addiction, a condition with no obvious physiological cause, provide information that changes the way we think about addiction and mental illness. I will use its results to raise awareness and understanding of internet addiction, but also to advise charities, healthcare facilities, and individuals dealing with it.

Research activity codes: 7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Accelerating a more inclusive science of autism through the Complex Needs Research and Development Hub (COMRAD)
Funder: Autistica

Abstract: Making research and education support more inclusive to support the needs and skills of autistic children with complex support needs, and who speak few to no words. Deliverables: Toolbox of best-practice guidance, tested measurements and research methodologies to support researchers to include autistic people with complex needs in their studies.

Lay abstract: Making research and education support more inclusive to support the needs and skills of autistic children with complex support needs, and who speak few to no words. Deliverables: Toolbox of best-practice guidance, tested measurements and research methodologies to support researchers to include autistic people with complex needs in their studies.

Research activity codes: 2.6 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (AETIOLOGY);8.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (HEALTH SERVICES)
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Targeting the inflammatory cytokine system as a therapeutic strategy for extinction resistance in PTSD
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects people following a traumatising incident. While most individuals recover with no problems, some people who experience traumatic events develop disabling symptoms. The reasons for this however are less well known. One hypothesis is that an early life stressor may “prime” an individual, for example via circuity, biochemical or immune related changes, making it difficult to extinguish memories associated with the fearful event. Here we will investigate this hypothesis and examine how immune activation following early life stress (ELS) might impact on the development of PTSD. We will examine how exposure to ELS impacts a contextual fear conditioning paradigm. Freezing behaviour after exposure to a contextually paired foot shock will be assessed. The amount of time it takes for the animal to reduce freezing will be seen as extinction (the learning that the fearful context is now safe). Furthermore, behavioural tests underlying molecular mechanisms and immune pathways will be assessed. Despite being highly disabling little is known about what causes people to develop PTSD and what next steps are for therapy development. This research will further elucidate the underlying mechanisms of PTSD. Furthermore, the research may lead to novel therapies which are highly sought after.


Research activity codes: 2.1 BIOLOGICAL AND ENDOGENOUS FACTORS
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Title: Longitudinal studies to investigate adult outcomes of autism and autistic traits
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: Autism is a lifelong condition characterised by difficulties with social interaction, social communication and repetitive behaviours. In recent decades, the number of children and adults diagnosed with autism has increased. As autism is heritable, genetic risk may explain why some individuals with mild autistic traits may not meet the criteria for an autism diagnosis and subsequent treatment or other support requirements. As more children with autism and mild autistic traits reach adulthood, the need for health and other services will likely increase. However, few large, well-conducted studies involving adults with autism exist, representing a research gap. During my PhD project, I will study how autism and autism traits, including genetic risk for them, may be associated with physical health, social and economic circumstances at different stages of adult life. I will take a longitudinal approach to investigate whether there are periods of vulnerability or change in relation to elements of physical health, such as BMI, and social and economic outcomes, such as employment status and level of education. This research will contribute to better understanding of adult outcomes of autism and, potentially, flag the need for more service provisions to meet health and other support requirements.


Research activity codes: 2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH