Context

Mental health economics focuses on understanding the causes, consequences, and costs of mental ill health, and on identifying how to allocate resources effectively across prevention, treatment, and long-term support. Mental health presents unique economic challenges due to high prevalence, substantial societal burden, inequalities in access and outcomes, high comorbidity with physical health, and complex care pathways.

Sub-group session - launch event

The session was convened by Rachel Elliott (University of Manchester), Rachael Hunter (UCL), and Rowena Jacobs (University of York).

The aims of the session were to:

• Bring together researchers interested in mental health and care economics to share ideas, experience, and build collaborations.
• Explore methodological challenges unique to mental health and care economic research.
• Consider how a community of practice could advance capabilities, connect people and projects, and support future funding applications.

The session started with a presentation by Rowena, where she talked about what makes mental health economically distinctive and where economists can contribute: modelling demand and supply, valuing mental health, addressing evaluation challenges, and considering wider system impacts.

This was followed by three case studies addressing methodological challenges: 

1. Whole-Disease Modelling for Schizophrenia (Huajie Jin, KCL)
2. Target Trials for Digital Mental Health (Matthew Franklin, Sheffield)
3. Economic Evaluations of Self-Harm and Suicide Prevention (Fanyi Su, Manchester)

This was followed by a group discussion where participants explored how a community of practice could:

• strengthen methodological expertise
• link researchers and existing initiatives
• support collaborative projects
• enhance capacity for early-career researchers
• define NIHR’s role
• complement existing groups (e.g., IHEA SIG)

We asked Prof Rowena Jacobs, co-lead of the sub-group, what she hopes having a Mental Health sub-group in the NIHR Economics Group will help to achieve.

Future plans

In the longer term, we hope a community of practice will evolve that might involve seminars and a forum for sharing ideas and opportunities for collaborations to form to undertake research in this area. This initiative will be co-led by Rachel Elliott, Rachael Hunter and Rowena Jacobs. 

Essentially, our future aims are as follows:

Methodological Development:

• Expand use of linked real-world datasets.
• Improve modelling of complex and long-term mental
  health trajectories.
• Advance causal inference and approaches for non-randomised
  evidence.
• Capture wider societal impacts (employment, education, justice).

Collaboration and Capacity Building:

• Establish a UK community of practice for mental health economics.
• Build cross-university, clinical, policy, and NIHR networks.
• Provide structured support for ECRs and new PIs.