The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major and diverse set of impacts on the mental health of people living in the UK and globally.
Although primarily a respiratory condition, COVID-19 can also affect the brain, triggering or exacerbating a wide range of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders.
In 2020, at the beginning of the UK COVID-19 epidemic, the Academy of Medical Sciences and MQ convened a multidisciplinary group of experts, including people with lived experience, to define a set of mental health sciences research priorities.
As the UK response to the pandemic moves from an emergency phase to a more considered long-term response, strategic research priorities must be revisited. In April 2021, representatives from multiple disciplines, as well as people with lived experience, came together at a workshop organised by the Academy of Medical Sciences and MQ to discuss progress in mental health sciences research to date and future research priorities.
The report details the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic – ranging from loneliness to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – and reveals how these vary between different groups of people. It also explains how research can respond to this challenge, and laid out key priorities for research in this area moving forwards. You can read the full report here.
A holistic approach to unpicking mechanisms: Participants noted the critical importance of an integrated ‘mind-body-brain’ view of mental health. Multiple mechanisms and pathways – biological, psychological and social – all impact on mental health and need to be considered holistically in order to fully understand the key drivers of mental health problems and how they act together to increase the risk of mental health conditions. This is the case for both the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19.
Focusing on solutions: To date, much attention has focused on describing the extent of mental health problems related to the pandemic. Although quantification and characterisation remain important, participants agreed that it was now important to focus on solutions. Specifically, there is a need to develop and evaluate interventions to improve mental health, particularly low-cost and scalable interventions; the potential for additional digital interventions was also highlighted. The importance of involving people with lived experience in intervention development was also emphasised.
Focusing on vulnerable populations: A greater focus is needed on vulnerable populations, including young people, older people, the financially insecure, people with pre-existing mental health conditions, members of ethnic minority communities, and frontline workers, among others. For ethnic minority populations, the need to take a more granular view was emphasised, to take account of marked differences in the experience of different ethnic communities and across generations.
Mobilising data: The need to focus on mental health trajectories over time was stressed, as single point ‘snapshots’ may be of limited value. The importance of sample diversity was also emphasised, to ensure that ethnic minorities and other vulnerable groups are fully represented. Other important priorities included addressing governance issues that restrict timely analysis of data, exploring innovative data linkage, and promoting open science practices.
Involving people with lived experience: The mental health sciences research community has a strong track record of working with people with lived experience of mental health difficulties. It was suggested that this engagement needed to be maintained and strengthened through all stages of the research process, including research prioritisation and the co-design and co-production of interventions.
Strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration: Participants agreed that the collaborative cross-disciplinary approach established in 2020 should be maintained and built upon, for example with greater engagement with social researchers, mental health practitioners and other healthcare staff, and with other stakeholders such as people with lived experience and policymakers.4 The UK’s mental health research goals can provide a framework for orienting the work of researchers across different disciplines around common objectives.
Embedding COVID-19-related responses within a broader mental health context: It was noted that the mental health impacts of COVID-19 are not experienced in isolation. Its consequences are heavily dependent on wider social determinants of health. COVID-19 may provide an opportunity to focus more attention on the mental health impacts of social determinants of health.
As the response to the COVID-19 pandemic shifts from an ‘emergency’ to a ‘chronic’ phase, it will be important to map out future directions for mental health sciences research. COVID-19 has not disappeared and will remain a public health priority for the foreseeable future.
You can read more about this on the Academy of Medical Sciences Website.
