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'Mental Health Crisis in Midlife – Generating Hypotheses to Guide Future Research on Potential Causes of the Crisis' brought together the Institute of Education and the Faculty of Brain Sciences

The project team engaged with members of the public, mental health professionals and researchers to generate hypotheses helping to explain the 'midlife mental health crisis' and to produce recommendations how these can be investigated using the UK-based data. This will guide future research.

The project aimed at addressing three main objectives:Ìý

• Objective 1: to collate views and experiences from public, professionals and researchers;Ìý
• Objective 2: to build hypotheses/research question;Ìý
• Objective 3: to disseminate hypotheses/research questions.

Objective 1 included:Ìý

We published a blog on Huffington Post outlining the evidence for lower wellbeing/higher symptoms of depression and anxiety during middle-adulthood (age 45-50). This initiated the wider discussion with members of the public via various social media platforms. We moderated the discussion within the blog comments section, via Twitter, and further comments were also encouraged via SurveyMonkey. Due to potential ethical implications (ethical approval might have been required), face-to-face discussion with members of the public did not take place. Our efforts focused on social media campaigns instead. We also talked to researchers and mental health professionals. Discussions took place in one-to-one format, during conference poster sessions (London, UK and Sao Paulo, Brazil), seminars and mental-health service meetings (London, UK; Sao Paulo, Brazil and Stockholm, Sweden; Muenster, Viersen Germany).Ìý

Objective 2 included: Ìý

Objective 1 and 2 were addressed through a cyclical process, were previous findings were fed into further discussion. For instance, during seminar sessions with researchers, we first asked about potential reasons for the 'midlife mental health crisis', which was followed by discussion of findings generated through previous sessions (e.g. conversations with mental health professionals) and how these can be tested with the UK-based data. Finally, we mapped the relevant datasets and variables that can be used to address generated hypotheses.

Objective 3 included:Ìý

Objective 3 refers to dissemination of findings. We are currently drafting an article aimed at researchers and policy makers, which will be submitted to the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. It will outline ideas and research questions for future research. In addition, we are working on a popular science article in the Conversation accompanied by the infographic, which will target both researchers and members of the public. The article will summarise key findings from our original research on the 'midlife mental health crisis', which is currently being considered for an academic publication, as well as outcomes of the Grand Challenges project.Ìý

Findings

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The findings of our project include several hypotheses for the 'midlife mental health crisis' that can be tested using the UK-based data, for instance, competing family roles (care-related responsibilities towards children and parents), stressful jobs, poor work-life balance. These hypotheses are particularly suited to be tested with the British birth cohorts, which collect information from the same individuals from birth to death – among those born in 1946, 1958 and 1970.Ìý

One of the key outcomes of our projects is a blog on the Huffington Post that contributed to raising awareness of the 'midlife mental health crisisÌýas a public health challenge and destigmatising the issue. In addition, we created a poster/infographic summarising the problem of midlife crisis, which has been extensively used in seminars, conference presentations and online communication. Further outcomes, which are more likely be of benefit in the future, include raising awareness of the issue among researchers, policy makers and mental health professionals to stimulate conversations on how the problem can be further researched and addressed. Our work was met with a lot of interest at other UCL departments (e.g. the Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) as well as other (foreign) institutions (e.g. the Department of Public Health Sciences at Karolinska Institutet, MQ –Mental health charity, Maytree charity) – which may lead to future collaborations.Ìý

The project provided us with opportunities to speak to leading researchers in the field as well as mental health professionals who rarely participate in the research process. In addition, we gained invaluable experience in public engagement and we received the state-of-art training on research communication using visual tools. We especially benefited from the collaboration as it gave us increased insights into new, cross-disciplinary research methods that are commonly applied in our grant-challenge partner’s discipline. ÌýOverall, the activities helped us to put our research into context, beyond academia enriching our PhD experience. Finally, the collaboration helped to strengthen links between the Centre for Longitudinal Studies and the Evidence Based Practice Unit, which will likely result in a joint grant application.

The project helped to initiate links between UCL departments (CLS and EBPU) and MQ Transforming Mental Health. MQ Transforming Mental Health has become more aware of the data resources based at both CLS and EBPU as well as work done at both departments, which may result in future collaborations.Ìý

Further Plans

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Future plans include dissemination of the findings and grant application for further research. Work on the Grand Challenges project coincided with our original empirical research on the 'midlife mental health crisis' using the UK-based data, which is currently being considered for an academic publication. Once our research is published, we are planning to disseminate its findings to non-academic audience, which will trigger further discussion about the 'midlife mental health crisis' informing the Grand Challenges project. This will be followed by finalising outcomes of the project (an academic and a popular science articles; see Objective 3). In long-term we are planning to submit a research grant application, which will be directly based on the findings of our original empirical study and the Grand Challenges project.Ìý

It is going to be for about a year - further exploring midlife crisis with the British birth cohorts.

“Participating in the Grand Challenges helped us to establish strong collaborative links with partners, as working on the application provided the structure and a common goal, which strengthened our relationship. In addition, being supported by a recognised scheme made it easier to approach top academics and to receive additional support from more senior members of our departments. Finally, successful collaboration within the Grand Challenges may lead to further collaboration on a wider scale, which would not be considered otherwise.Ìý