Senior Research Fellow (Mental Health Inequality

Senior Research Fellow (Mental Health Inequality)

Senior Research Fellow in Mental Health Inequality

The University of Worcester has received a significant award from the National Institute for Health and Social Care Research (NIHR) to expand our mental health research capacity and develop a programme of research into rural mental health inequality.

Led by the University of Worcester, the programme will be delivered in collaboration with colleagues at the Institute for Mental Health, University of Birmingham. The programme will also involve close partnership working with colleagues drawn from across our regional Integrated Care Board, including Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, Primary Care, Public Health colleagues, and VCSE partners.

We are looking to recruit a Senior Research Fellow in Mental Health Inequality to join a team which also includes a Professor of Mental Health Inequality and Research Fellow in Mental Health.

THRIVE:
The Tackling Health inequalities and unmet Rural mental health needs in Vuln Erable communities across Herefordshire and Worcestershire Programme

Mental illness in rural areas can go unnoticed due to social isolation, stigma, and barriers to accessing services. There is an urgent need for more research on rural mental health to better understand and address these issues. The THRIVE programme will bring together researchers, health and social care professionals, and people with lived experience of mental illness to develop and deliver high quality research focused around three thematic areas:

• Early Intervention and Prevention
• Digital Support

The THRIVE programme will be supported by a new People and Community in Research Involvement and Engagement Network and reinforces our long-term commitment to improving mental health in rural communities and enhancing our regional research culture.

The Senior Research Fellow (Mental Health Inequality) will work within a wider team to deliver the NIHR funded THRIVE Programme (Tackling Health inequalities and unmet Rural mental health needs In Vuln Erable communities across Herefordshire and Worcestershire). They will be an independent researcher who will develop research proposals aligned to the programme, engage in individual and/or collaborative research and plans, whilst working closely in partnership with regional and national stakeholders.

They will be responsible for disseminating outputs from the THRIVE programme to academic, public and community audiences. They will support the team to write competitive funding applications, including a bid for a NIHR Mental Health Research Group, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham. They will supervise research students and/or other research staff.

The postholder will join a new Mental Health Inequities Research Unit which sits within the Department of Psychology & Mental Health in the School of Health & Wellbeing. The School is focused on impactful research which makes a difference to residents, patients and carers, health and social care professionals, and the VCSE sector, particularly across the region of Herefordshire and Worcestershire, but which also informs decision-makers and policy-makers in the wider, national health and social care ecosystem.

The postholder will engage with other impactful research clusters in the School, including:

• Association for Dementia Studies : whose research seeks to build evidence-based practice in a range of contexts (communities, assisted living, care homes, hospitals) to support people living with dementia and their families and carers to live well.
• Living Well with Long-Term Conditions Research Group : whose research seeks to understand the impact of a range of long-term conditions (cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, renal/urology, endocrine/diabetes, neurological/psychiatric and musculoskeletal/trauma) on wellbeing, so as to inform ongoing management of these conditions by both patient and health professional.

The postholder will be expected to work from an approach of interdisciplinarity and to collaborate with researchers in other constituent Schools:
Nursing &…