Rohan Borschmann is a psychologist and Reader in Mental Health Care & Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, and has a dual appointment with the King’s Better Health & Care Hub. His research focuses on three main pillars:

•  Improving the health of underserved and marginalised populations, such as people in contact with the criminal justice system, refugees and asylum seekers, people experiencing homelessness, and people with chronic mental health and substance use disorders.
• Improving the mental health of children and adolescents;
•  Reducing and preventing self-harm and suicidal behaviour.

Rohan has visiting appointments at the University of Oxford (Department of Psychiatry), Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust (Thames Valley Specialised CYP Mental Health Services Provider Collaborative), the University of Melbourne (Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences and the Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing), Curtin University (Justice Health Group), and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne (Centre for Adolescent Health). He completed his PhD in psychiatry at the IoPPN in 2014 and has experience with longitudinal studies, multi-sectoral data linkage, randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses. He has published >200 academic papers (see here).

A former prison psychologist and probation officer, Rohan is the Deputy Head of the Justice Health Group in Australia, a multi-institutional research team led by Professor Stuart Kinner at Curtin University. The Justice Health Group generates world-class evidence regarding the health and health service experiences of justice-involved people, and advocates for evidence-informed policies to improve their health and wellbeing.

Rohan leads the multi-national Mortality After Release from Incarceration Consortium (MARIC), a consortium of >70 academics, clinicians, and advocates from 14 countries working together to examine and reduce premature mortality in people who have been released from prisons and jails worldwide (see here). Rohan is Co-Chair of the International Association of Suicide Prevention (IASP) Special Interest Group “Suicide Prevention in the Criminal Justice Sector” (with Professor Karen Slade, Professor Tammi Walker and Dr Bryce Stoliker). He is a Guest Editor of the Special Issue of Social Science and Medicine: “Incarceration, inclusion, and health equity: Evidence, perspectives, and future directions” (with fellow Guest Editors Professor Stuart Kinner, A/Professor Fiona Kouyoumdjian, Professor Emily Wang, and Professor Megha Ramaswamy) and he co-authored the health chapter of the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty.

Research interests

• Adolescent mental health
• The health of people in contact with the criminal justice system
• Self-harm and suicide prevention
• The health of people experiencing homelessness.

PhD Supervision

Rohan offers PhD supervision for mental health research topics relating to:

• Adolescent mental health
• Self-harm and suicide prevention and epidemiology
• The intersection of the criminal justice and health systems.

 Expertise and public engagement

• National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research for Patient Benefit programme: Regional Advisory Committee (London) member
• BJPsych Open: International Editorial Board Member
• Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology: Editor
• Australian Association for Adolescent Health: Former President
• Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency: Registered Psychologist