Dataset Information

Social, cultural and community engagement and mental health: cross-disciplinary, co-produced research agenda.

ABSTRACT:

Background

There is increasing cross-disciplinary research on the relationship between individuals' social, cultural and community engagement (SCCE) and mental health. SCCE includes engagement in the arts, culture and heritage, libraries and literature, sports and nature activities, volunteering, and community groups. Research has demonstrated the effects of these activities both on the prevention and management of mental illness. However, it remains unclear whether current research is focusing on the research questions that are of most immediate urgency and relevance to policy and practice.

Aims

The current project was funded as part of the UK Research and Innovation cross-disciplinary mental health network programme to develop and co-produce a new cross-disciplinary research agenda on SCCE and mental health.

Method

Established processes and principles for developing health research agendas were followed, with a six-phase design including engagement with over 1000 key stakeholders, consultations, integration of findings and collective prioritisation of key questions.

Results

We identified four core themes: the mode of engagement, process of engagement, impact of engagement and infrastructure required to facilitate engagement. There were many points of agreement across all stakeholder groups on the priority questions within these themes, but also some specific questions of relevance to different sectors.

Conclusions

This agenda is particularly timely given the extreme pressure on mental health services predicted to follow the current COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to identify how resources from other sectors can be mobilised, and what research questions are going to be most important to fund to support SCCE for mental health.

SUBMITTER: Fancourt D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7791563 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Social, cultural and community engagement and mental health: cross-disciplinary, co-produced research agenda.

Fancourt Daisy D Bhui Kamaldeep K Chatterjee Helen H Crawford Paul P Crossick Geoffrey G DeNora Tia T South Jane J

BJPsych open 20201201 1

<h4>Background</h4>There is increasing cross-disciplinary research on the relationship between individuals' social, cultural and community engagement (SCCE) and mental health. SCCE includes engagement in the arts, culture and heritage, libraries and literature, sports and nature activities, volunteering, and community groups. Research has demonstrated the effects of these activities both on the prevention and management of mental illness. However, it remains unclear whether current research is f ...[more]

PMID: 33256880

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Project description:BackgroundPublic engagement events are an important early strategy in developing a meaningful research agenda, which is more impactful and beneficial to the population. Evidence indicates the potential of such activities to promote mental health literacy. However, this has not yet been explored in Indonesia.AimThis paper describes a mental health public engagement festival carried out in Indonesia in November 2018 and uses evaluation data to consider the acceptability and use of such activities in Indonesia in the future.MethodEvaluation data was collected from 324 of the 737 people who attended a six-day mental health festival comprising 18 events including public lectures, film screenings, arts activities, exercise classes and panel discussions. Attendees were asked to evaluate the festival in terms of its quality, benefits and areas for improvement. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the evaluation data. 87 service users, carers, academics and professionals also engaged in a research prioritisation exercise to collaboratively determine mental health research priorities for Indonesia.ResultsParticipants evaluated the festival extremely positively with a significant majority (92%) rating the quality of the festival as good or excellent. Attendees reported an increase in their understanding of mental health issues and identified intended behaviour change including an increased propensity for future engagement with mental health research. Key strengths of the festival included the central role of patients, carers and the local community in the design and delivery of the festival which promoted emotional engagement and development of shared understanding and the use of international experts which in attendees' opinion further enhanced the credibility of festival activities.ConclusionThis manuscript indicates that a co-produced mental health public engagement festival is a potentially acceptable way to increase awareness of mental health in Indonesian populations. Future festivals should be larger in scope and target men, older people and the general public to maximise benefit and incorporate rigorous evaluation of effectiveness.

Project description:BackgroundResearch priorities are best defined through engagement with communities who will be impacted by the research and have lived experience of the topics to be studied. We aimed to establish a pediatric rare disease community stakeholder group and empower them in (1) eliciting perspectives from affected families in the wider region and (2) synthesizing collective ideas into a research agenda focused on shared ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) across rare disease.MethodsThis two-year project utilized a community-centered approach to engage rare disease community members as equal partners in developing a research agenda for ELSI in rare disease. We established "Rare Voices" (RV), a 22-member stakeholder group of patients, parents, clinicians and researchers. Following capacity-building trainings, RV designed and conducted listening sessions with teen patients and parents of children with rare diseases to explore challenges, positive experiences, and ethical concerns. Listening session findings were synthesized and contextualized into research topics, which RV members further refined and prioritized. We used established measures to assess RV member engagement and satisfaction.ResultsFrom 14 listening sessions with parents (n = 52) and teen patients (n = 13), RV identified eight core research topics as most important for future rare disease research: coordinating care, communication, accessing resources and care, impact on family unit, community and support in society, mental health and identity, ethical aspects of care, and uncertainty. RV members were highly engaged throughout the two-year project and reported high levels of satisfaction with the experience and research agenda.ConclusionsThrough capacity-building and authentic engagement, this project resulted in a community-led rare disease research agenda to guide future rare disease ELSI research that aligns with patients' and families' priorities. An environment of equal partnership and respect created a space for mutual learning where community members were empowered to shape the research agenda based on their collective experiences. The agenda recognizes the shared psychosocial and healthcare experiences of rare disease and offers practical areas of research to address patient and family needs.

Project description:BACKGROUND:The perspectives of mental health consumers and carers are increasingly recognised as important to the development and conduct of research. However, research directions are still most commonly developed without consumer and carer input. This project aimed to establish priorities for mental health research driven by the views of consumers and carers in Australia. METHOD:The project was conducted in two studies. Firstly, a face-to-face discussion forum held in the Australian Capital Territory (Study 1; n?=?25), followed by a national online survey (Study 2; n?=?70). Participants in both studies were members of the community who identified as a mental health consumer, carer or both. In Study 1, participants developed topics for mental health research in small group discussions, then voted on which topics, developed across all groups and sorted into thematic areas, were a priority. An online survey was developed from these research topics. Study 2 participants were asked to rate topics on a 5-point priority scale and rank the relative importance of the highest-rated topics. RESULTS:At the forum, 79 topics were generated and grouped into 14 thematic areas. Votes on priorities were spread across a large number of topics, with the greatest overall support for research relating to integrating care that is sensitive to past experiences of trauma into mental health service delivery (trauma-informed care). Survey responses were similarly spread, with the majority of research topics rated as important by at least 50% of participants and no clear individual priorities for research identified. Amongst items rated as important by approximately 80% of participants, key research areas included the delivery of services, and consumer and carer involvement. CONCLUSIONS:Australian mental health consumers and carers demonstrate a strong understanding of the mental health system and its inadequacies. Although clear specific priorities are difficult to establish, consistent areas of focus are services and the role consumers and carers can play in their improvement. However, for consumer and carer views to be at the forefront of research, it is important to regularly update research agendas and work in partnership across the whole research process.

Project description:Background:Although it is generally accepted that engaging with members of the public contributes to more actionable and relevant research, there are a limited number of reported evaluations of community engagement initiatives. Certain populations, such as those with lower socioeconomic status and those who live in rural or dispersed communities, tend to face increased barriers to engagement. For researchers and community members alike, it is important to understand and evaluate engagement initiatives to support participatory research methods, particularly when working with underserved or hard to reach populations. Methods:Over 2-days in October 2018, we hosted a Research Agenda Development Workshop and Physical Activity Summit with relevant researchers, health professionals, and community partners. The objectives of this initiative were to develop a physical activity research agenda based on community-identified priorities, create networking opportunities, and understand factors impacting physical activity participation in communities across northern British Columbia (BC). An evaluation plan was created early in the planning process to understand the reach of the event based on representation targets. Stakeholder satisfaction with the event was evaluated with a post-meeting survey. Results:The event was successful in engaging community members from a broad geographic region with at least 90 people in attendance from 11 different northern BC communities, representing 46 different organizations. Meeting attendees indicated they were satisfied with the event and felt their perspectives were heard. To advance physical activity in the region, the most commonly desired outcome from the event was the need for ongoing communication channels to support knowledge translation and capacity building in the low-resourced communities of northern BC. There were some gaps in representation targets present at the event. Namely, there were a limited number of people representing Indigenous organizations, and the education and private sectors. Conclusions:This two-day event was successful at achieving its objectives and engaged a diverse group of stakeholders from a broad geographic region. The outcomes from this event are being used to develop a community-partnered physical activity research agenda and contribute to ongoing learning by the research team to understand contextual factors influencing physical activity in the communities of northern BC. This model of engagement could be used by other researchers interested in engaging with a diverse, multi-sector group of academics, health professionals and community members to support community-centered population health research.

Project description:There is a growing body of literature suggesting that the arts can support mental health. However, both arts participation and cultural engagement are unevenly patterned across the population, with a strong social gradient. This social gradient is also evident in mental health. So it remains unclear whether the relationship between arts engagement and mental health can in fact be explained by socio-economic status (SES). This study explores this question specifically in relation to cultural engagement (e.g. visiting museums/galleries/cinema/theatre/concerts) using data from 8780 adults aged 50 + from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. We used a statistical triangulation approach, running three separate sets of analyses that each have different strengths and address different statistical limitations or biases. Using logistic regression, the relationship between cultural engagement and mental health was still present when including covariates relating to SES, and there was no evidence of moderation by SES either through the inclusion of interaction terms or stratification. Using propensity score matching, matching participants based on their SES, we also consistently found evidence of the relationship. Finally, using fixed-effects regression which takes account of all time-invariant factors (which include multiple aspects of SES) even if unobserved, we also found no attenuation of the relationship. Overall, this confirms previous reports that cultural engagement is linked with a lower odds of depression amongst adults aged 50 + by demonstrating a robust association in a nationally-representative sample of older adults. While SES does explain around half of the association between cultural engagement and depression, we found no evidence that it either acts as a moderator or the main explanatory factor, with independent associations maintained across all three approaches. However, the fact that higher SES is associated with more frequent engagement indicates that, in population terms, SES is still an important determinant of the salutogenic impact of culture.

Dataset Information

Social, cultural and community engagement and mental health: cross-disciplinary, co-produced research agenda.

Background

Aims

Method

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Social, cultural and community engagement and mental health: cross-disciplinary, co-produced research agenda.

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