Humanising Healthcare podcast Series 3 Episode 6 - Data & Digital Gaps in Mental Health

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Data & Digital Gaps in Mental Health

In this edition:

In this week’s episode, Data & Digital Gaps in Mental Health, Manasi is joined by Jaron Soh, co-founder and CEO of Voda, the mental health companion designed for LGBTQIA+ individuals, and Dr Amal Khanolkar, Researcher in Epidemiology and Public Health.

They discuss the mental health disparities of LGBTQIA+ individuals and heterosexual peers across all ages and across the life course, that has been demonstrated in numerous studies. They go on to discuss the data gaps of sexual and gender minority information in the UK particularly for older LGBTQIA+ people and LGBTQIA+ for an ethnic minority background. They discuss Voda an app to support LGBTQIA+ mental health that aims to provide joyful, accessible, and affirming mental health support specifically designed for LGBTQIA+ lives.

Manasi Nandi

Professor of Integrative Pharmacology and Physiology 

Manasi is a scientist and educator based within the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the extraction of new information from vital signs data, aiding research and clinical decision making, and identifying earlier alerts of disease. She has expertise in medicine discovery and development and the translation of laboratory findings into clinical practice. She is a fellow of the British Pharmacological Society, most recently supporting efforts to embed inclusive principles into the national curriculum. Inclusivity and accessibility are at the core of her teaching and research practice. She is the Development, Diversity and Inclusion lead for the School and Cancer and Pharmaceutical Science, supporting EDI activities at Faculty and College level. She launched the Humanising Healthcare seminar series in 2023.

Jaron Soh

Co-founder & CEO

Jaron Soh (he/him) is co-founder and CEO of Voda, the mental health companion designed for LGBTQIA+ individuals, providing culturally competent, discreet, and affordable mental health support.

The app works with LGBTQIA+ psychotherapists and clinical psychologists to create accessible content for LGBTQIA+ specific issues such as coming out, gender dysphoria, misgendering, hate speech, medical stigma, and LGBTQIA+ shame.

Voda was named “Rising Star” in the UK National StartUp Awards in 2024, and currently serves 35,000+ people globally.

Dr Amal R Khanolkar

Researcher

Amal is social and lifecourse epidemiologist with a keen interest in methodology (especially longitudinal methods), specialising in health inequalities and noncommunicable disease epidemiology. His strengths lie in observational epidemiology and mixed methods, teaching (basic and advanced epidemiology and biostatistics, methods for health inequalities research and social medicine), project management and supervision of research projects (specifically MSc dissertations and PhD projects). He is also interested in mental health, and specifically in comorbidity between mental and physical health and associated inequalities, especially those related to marginalised and minority groups (multiple minority identities - expanding on intersectionality, minority stress and cultural relational theories).

Amal has extensive teaching experience in both undergraduate and graduate degree programmes at multiple universities.