King's Population Health Institute Investigator Awards

Catherine Jones - Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: A feasibility testing pilot study of symptom tracking and establishing a multidisciplinary team

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) is characterised by the cyclical recurrence of distressing or impairing affective symptoms in the two weeks prior to menses onset (the luteal phase), which subside during and after menstruation. PMDD is under-researched despite the clinical significance of the disorder and impact on daily life. This project will involve gathering preliminary symptom tracking data to provide initial insights into the variability of PMDD across the menstrual cycle and interaction with other factors including social determinants of health. The feasibility of a larger scale study including active and passive monitoring of health symptoms and behaviours of people with PMDD will be tested and evaluated.

This award will enable us to gather pilot data on daily tracking of PMDD symptoms and host a multi-disciplinary sandpit to establish key research priorities and a new research team, which will be pivotal in applying for future grants.

Nathan Cheetham - Getting in and getting on: Understanding unmet need for health care services to address socio-economic inequalities in health

The project explores inequalities in recent health care experiences based on socio-economic background and circumstances, using data collected as part of the King’s population health study, the COVID Symptom Study Biobank (CSSB). The project aims to understand what specific aspects of the experience of accessing and using health care services contribute most to health care needs being met, or not. We will also look at which groups of respondents are more or less likely to report their health care needs not being met.

The award allows us to generate ‘proof of concept’ data that details health care experiences in more detail than before. This will inform future work aimed at identifying and understanding unmet need for health care in the wider, general UK population.

Ruth Plackett - Optimising Patient Portals (MyChart) for Equitable, Person-Centred Care: A Systematic Review and Co-Produced Theory of Change

This project will generate evidence on how widely used patient portals such as MyChart can support equitable, person-centred, and sustainable models of care across the NHS. It combines a rigorous scoping review with patient and public involvement to understand MyChart’s impacts on engagement with care, safety, patient experience, and equity, and to identify barriers and enablers for patients, carers and providers. The project will produce a co-produced theory of change and logic model to guide future implementation and evaluation of MyChart.

The award enables delivery of a scoping review and co-produced theory of change/logic model that will underpin future funding applications for a large-scale evaluation of MyChart enabled care.

Dionne Laporte and Sharon Stevelink - The Welfare Gap: Investigating ethnic inequalities in welfare, health, and work through big data and stakeholder insights

This project explores ethnic inequalities in benefit receipt and how these are linked to mental health and employment outcomes. Through scoping relevant datasets and data linkage opportunities, and by working with stakeholders and community members, the project will begin to explore these relationships. The overall aim is to lay the groundwork for a larger mixed methods study focused on understanding and addressing these inequalities.

This award enables us to build and strengthen our relationships with key stakeholders, deliver workshops, assess the availability and quality of data linkages and other datasets, and ultimately using those insights to develop a research grant proposal for submission for an external funder.

Mary Ni Lochlainn - The FOLiAGE study: Folate Fortification and Healthy Ageing: An Observational Study in Older Adults Using the TwinsUK Cohort

This is a time-critical study which aims to study the impact of the new UK legislation which mandates that flour is to be fortified with folate. In particular, we are studying what the impact of this folate fortification is on older people, on many facets of ageing, and with a particular focus on the potential role of the gut microbiome in mediating the effects.

This award is allowing me to collect crucial baseline folate and B12 status in the TwinsUK cohort ensuring as much data is available pre-fortification as possible, while we apply for significantly larger grants to fund the post-fortification body of work.

Tiffanny Gooden - Rapid mixed-methods evaluation of chemsex services and care pathways to identify gaps, inefficiencies, unmet need and opportunities for improving care for LGBTQ+ chemsex users

Chemsex has a growing footprint in the UK and without optimised care pathways, this population remains at heightened risk of HIV transmission, sexual and mental ill-health, and avoidable emergency presentations. We will conduct a rapid evidence synthesis and service mapping using Freedom of Information requests, supplemented by a mixed-methods primary data collection including a national online survey of chemsex users and key informant interviews with service providers and chemsex users. Throughout the project, we will be working with colleagues from one of the largest sexual health clinics in Europe (56 Dean Street in London), an internationally recognised chemsex support NGO (Controlling Chemsex), a diverse scientific advisory group, and members of our patient and public involvement group comprising 12 people with lived experience of chemsex use.

This award will generate preliminary data and strengthen partnerships needed for subsequent external applications to co-develop, pilot and evaluate new/optimised pathways for chemsex users.

Lei Lu - Enhancing Cardiac Rehabilitation through LLM-Driven, Wearable-Based Personalised Feedback

This project will develop an AI-enabled digital platform that integrates smartwatch data to support heart failure patients throughout cardiac rehabilitation. By interpreting activity patterns and delivering personalised exercise insights, the system aims to enhance understanding, motivation, and sustained engagement with rehabilitation programmes.

This award will enable the initial development and feasibility testing of a novel digital health platform, providing a critical foundation for securing larger-scale funding in the future.

Jean Strelitz - Upstream prevention of mental ill health: evaluating the impacts of policy changes on co-morbid mental and physical health problems

We are using UK-wide administrative health data to evaluate the mental health impacts of alcohol policy by applying quasi-experimental analytic methods. We are partnering with the King's Policy Institute and the charity Thrive-LDN to engage directly with policymakers and maximise the impact of this research at local and national levels. This work will inform future policy modelling and economic modelling on the mental health impacts of alcohol policies.

The KPHI Investigator Award is supporting the collaboration with the Policy Institute and Thrive-LDN, establishing a partnership which will continue in a future grant application. The funding has also enabled us to recruit Lived Experience Advisors to take part in meetings with policy stakeholders to maximise the impact of this work.

Sanchika Campbell - Empowered Futures: Financial literacy for health equity in schools

Building on the CONNECT (CONtributions of social NEtworks to Community Thriving) study, and situated within the Population Mental Health Consortium (PMHC), this public engagement project aims to explore how systemic inequalities shape the relationship between money and mental health. Using creative workshops with young people, parents, and teachers from racially minoritised groups in South-East London, we aim to understand what community members believe should be prioritised in a culturally responsive school-based financial education programmes to improve financial wellbeing and reduce health inequalities.

The funding award enables me to work collaboratively with educators, charities, artists, researchers, and local community members to shape key community-based priorities and generate insights that will guide a scalable financial education initiative aimed at improving financial wellbeing and health equity across generations.

Tom Jewell - Nutrition information interventions for children and young people: a scoping review using realist principles

We are conducting a scoping review of all interventions that have been developed to help children and young people related to nutrition. This will help to guide the development of new interventions for young people with disordered eating. We are also using our award to consult with young people with experience of disordered eating.

This award is allowing us to develop an in-depth understanding of what kinds of nutrition content young people with disordered eating are exposed to, and what interventions might help, thereby strengthening our research plans in this area.