Health Service & Population Research

The Health Service and Population Research Department is led by Professor Graham Thornicroft, a Professor of Community Psychiatry and Consultant Psychiatrist.

The Health Service and Population Research Department (HSPR) seeks to find evidence-based ways to put innovatory treatments and services to the test – not only to improve people’s mental health but also to enhance their quality of life. Researchers in HSPR are developing ways of tailoring effective services to the age, gender or culture of people in need of help, discovering what sort of services offer best value for money and establishing how to reduce stigma and discrimination against people with mental illness.

HSPR aims to:

• Conduct high quality health service and population research in mental health relevant to policy and practice, nationally and internationally;
• Enable and promote service user and carer involvement in mental health research;
• Use a multidisciplinary approach to answer important mental health questions;
• Provide teaching and training in health service and epidemiological research skills; communicate our research findings widely.

There are three Research Centres within the Department:

• Centre for Innovation and Evaluation in Mental Health
• Centre for Public Mental Health
• Centre for the Economics of Mental Health.

The research focus of each of the Centres can be found on the relevant pages.

Our annual publication Towards Mental Health illustrates some of the research conducted.

The Health Service and Population Research Group has been honoured with a Queen’s Anniversary Award. These national honours are awarded every two years to institutions of higher and further education across the UK for work of outstanding excellence. Full details and the submission document can be found here: Queen's Prize

We run a range of teaching and training programmes, including short courses, MSc courses, and summer schools. To find out more about these programmes and extensive PhD opportunities, please see Section for Teaching and Learning

Graduate research students work closely with their supervisors and enjoy regular meetings to discuss their progress. They also liaise with other members of staff with relevant research interests and are encouraged to attend and participate in departmental research presentations and other Institute seminars. There is a full induction for new graduate students on commencing their studies. Each full-time graduate research student is allocated their own workspace and computer; facilities for part-time students can be arranged according to their needs.

Training courses run by the department, the Institute or through the Graduate School can be utilised as required to provide training in a wide variety of topics, from transferable skills to academic areas directly relevant to the student's thesis.