Research Associate - Coventry, United Kingdom - University of Warwick

University of Warwick

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Coventry, United Kingdom

1 week ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

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Description

Location
University of Warwick Campus, Coventry

Department
Warwick Medical School - Health Sciences

Position Type
Fixed Term, Full Time

Duration
Fixed term until 31 August 2025.

Salary
£29,605 to £32,982 per annum

About the Role

You will join the Warwick Medical School Mental Health and Wellbeing Unit as a Research Associate to support research activity for two externally funded projects: the NIHR funded "Transforming Access to Care for Serious Mental Disorders in Slums - the TRANSFORM Project" and the MRC-funded "Implementing Early Mental & Physical Health Detection & Support: Promoting a Whole-School Approach to Health and Well-being" (ISOBAR).

You will work with partners in Bangladesh, Canada, India and Nigeria.

The projects are led from Warwick Medical School (WMS) by PI Professor Swaran Singh, who also has overall management responsibility for both projects.

About You

You will have a research background in a health-related social science, health management, global health, applied health, implementation science or related field.

You will have responsibility for supporting and where applicable, leading research activities in consultation with the Principal Investigator (PI), Lead Senior Research Fellow, Dr Sagar Jilka and the wider Warwick Project team.

You will be line managed by the Senior Research Fellow (Dr Sagar Jilka) but will also operate with a considerable degree of autonomy and initiative.

About the Department

The Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing focuses on applied research into development and transitions across the life span, early interventions, prevention of illness and promotion of wellbeing.

The centre consists of a unique combination of experts in psychiatry, public health, cardiovascular health, psychology, social sciences and community paediatrics, interested in a life course approach.

Research activities include epidemiology, trials of complex interventions at individual, family and community levels, and understanding socio-cultural and environmental determinants of mental health and wellbeing.

Academic teams staff are internationally renowned for their impact on improving mental health and wellbeing across the life span, and in both clinical groups and the general population.

ISOBAR will implement and evaluate an evidence-based programme to prevent and/or delay the onset or progression of mental (anxiety, depression, psychosis) and nutritional disorders (malnutrition and obesity) in adolescents aged 12-18 years in India & Nigeria.

We will build on our previous work in these countries, to implement a whole-school intervention focused on physical and mental health and well-being.

The intervention will be contextualised for each study site to promote awareness, identify youth in distress and prevent the emergence of serious mental and nutritional disorders in adult life.

Some of the specific objectives include, raising health literacy amongst staff and students; screening and detecting emerging mental and physical health problems and promote appropriate help-seeking; collaborating with specialist services to prevent progression and accumulation of disability and creating a sustainable pathway that links local educational, health and social care systems for improved access to care for those requiring specialist care.

We will develop a hub-and-spoke model of trained school counsellors to provide mental health literacy, physical and mental health screening and appropriate support in three schools at each site using a 'stepped-wedge' paradigm in a total of nine schools and measure outcomes at the level of the school and the individual.

Our project aims to develop an effective, affordable and sustainable composite intervention which would advance local and regional preventative health policies for internalizing, externalizing and nutritional disorders in adolescents, thereby encouraging the adoption of evidence-based interventions.

TRANSFORM aims to improve access to care and outcomes of SMDs in slums, by developing an innovative collaborative care model involving traditional/faith healers, mental health professionals, primary care practitioners and community health workers (CHWs).

This multidisciplinary research programme will be conducted across two slum communities, one each in Korail, Bangladesh and Ibadan, Nigeria (both ODA-eligible countries).

The team will conduct in-depth studies to understand local communities' awareness and understanding of SMDs and sit with traditional and faith healers to understand who seeks care, how care is given and how healers identify and could refer those with treatable SMDs to medical care.

Slum populations in low
- and-middle-income countries (LMICs) have high rates of serious and enduring mental disorders (SMDs - psychotic disorders and severe mood disorders, often with co-occurring substance abuse) and very poor access to mental health care.

Sufferers and their families