King's College London

Why do lifelong gender inequalities in mental health emerge at the age they do? What are the causes and mechanisms for this, from the biological to the social, and their dynamic interplay? Are these inequalities preventable and if so, how?

To advance our understanding, we require new ideas and new data. The Bridging Divides team brings together biologists, social scientists, young people, parents, schools, community partners, and external experts to generate innovative hypotheses that challenge current thinking and co-design and pilot new interdisciplinary approaches aiming to answer these questions.

Working with young people and community partners at each step of the way, Bridging Divides Phase 1 focused on running Community Coproduction Team Sandpits and parallel Youth Workshops. These brought together a diverse interdisciplinary team for discussion, problem-solving, and innovation, as well as provided space for free discussion, wider representation of voices (including younger children), and exploration of emerging ideas.

Phase 1 of Bridging Divides focused on hypothesis generation, including four school workshops and coproduction sessions, to review the evidence base, create a mind-map of possible causes and mechanisms, generate ideas about their interplay, rank and prioritize ideas.

At the same time, we undertook a scoping review to understand the existing evidence base on measurement in these areas. These steps ultimately led to putting together a protocol for a new coproduced interdisciplinary study and a funding proposal attracting further funding. This has led to Phase 2 of the project, funded by the Wellcome Trust: Bridging Divides.

Principal Investigators

• Gemma Knowles (King's College London)
• Kristi Priestley (King's College London)

Investigators

• Daniel Stanyon (King's College London)
• Haruka Goto (King's College London)
• Adna Hashi (King's College London)
• Jonas Kitisu (King's College London)
• Giulia Lombardo (King's College London)
• Dario Moreno-Agostino (UCL)