ESN speaks at DG Research workshop on mental health

“The knowledge gained from actually delivering health and social care and the knowledge from the experience and reflection by using services should, in my view, be seen as important factors to help improve the translation of knowledge into policy. At European level, it is important that research makes the social and economic case for investing in mental health so that mental health and wellbeing are part of the social investment policy strategy, and at a regional and local level, where policy is implemented, we need real buy-in from politicians, services and citizens.”
ESN Chief Executive John Halloran

On 22 January the European Commission’s DG Research and Innovation organised a workshop in Brussels entitled ‘Mental Health Research – Bridging the Gap between Evidence and Policy‘. ESN’s Chief Executive John Halloran spoke at the panel on inter-sectoral collaboration. He argued that cooperation between different stakeholders and different sectors is key to ensuring a supportive environment for translating mental health research into practice. He also asked to broaden the knowledge generated by research to include practitioners and users’ knowledge.

Background

The 2010 study on ‘Global Burden of Disease’ revealed that mental health and substance use disorders were the leading causes of years lived with disabilities worldwide. In the EU 38,2% of the population encounters a mental disorder each year. Mental and brain disorders contribute 26.6% of the total burden of disease (the impact of a health problem as measured by financial cost, mortality, or other indicators).

On the basis of such evidence, mental health is of high socio-economic relevance for the EU, thus the European Commission has supported various research projects in this area. However, there is still a gap between research evidence and its uptake in policy and practice, which this workshop aimed to address. The event consisted of various presentations which shared the outcomes of particular projects funded by DG Research of the European Commission, and three panels which aimed to foster a dialogue between the different stakeholders.

European research projects in mental health

During the morning session, participants listened to presentations on 12 research projects which covered the promotion of mental health and prevention of depression and suicide, and more responsive, integrated and cost-effective mental health systems.

Two of these projects were:

• Optimising Suicide Prevention Programs (OSPI) – which aims to develop a cooperative approach between general practitioners, the general public, the community, and patients, and has been integrated into a toolkit that provides an evidence-based suicide prevention programme.


• REFINEMENT – which looks at the effect of financing on the quality of mental health services.

Knowledge creation and dissemination are not usually sufficient on their own to ensure appropriate knowledge use in decision making. There is a gap between the creation of research evidence and its uptake in policy and practice by various stakeholders, including health care providers, users, managers and policy makers.

From research to public mental health

In the afternoon, participants looked at identifying strategies and best evidence for overcoming barriers in developing practices for better public mental health based on the generated evidence. Dr. Tytti Solantaus from the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland spoke of “the need for a triangulation of research, practice and decision-making.” Dr. Maja Larsen from the University of Southern Denmark referred to “the need to integrate different types of knowledge in order to make the policy process more effective.”

The outcomes of the workshop will be presented in the coming weeks in a briefing document for further stimulating the process of knowledge translation and inter-sectoral cooperation and ensuring that evidence feeds into policy and practice.