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Research project shortlisted for top award

A research project jointly led by a º£½ÇÖ±²¥ academic has been shortlisted for a prestigious national award.

The project, which is the first of its kind in the UK to learn more about adults living with food insecurity and severe mental illness in northern England, has been named as a finalist in this year’s Bright ideas in Health Awards. The prestigious awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and teams working within the NHS, industry and academia, who have risen to the challenge in improving services provided to patients, either through a technical innovation or through better service delivery.

Researchers and clinicians have been working alongside people with lived experience of severe mental illness, including schizophrenia and related psychoses and bipolar disorder, to learn more about their experience of food insecurity and find out how services can support people living with severe mental illness to access healthy, affordable food.

Often referred to as food poverty, food insecurity is the lack of financial resources needed to ensure that a person has reliable access to enough food to meet their dietary, nutritional and social needs.

The research was led by Dr Emma Giles, associate professor in public health in the University’s School of Health & Life Sciences, and Jo Smith, clinical academic and consultant dietitian, in collaboration with Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health and Equally Well UK.

Funding for the research came from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the research partner of the NHS, public health and social care, for the NIHR Patient Benefit – Mental Health in the North programme.

The team will find out if they have been successful at the Bright Ideas in Health Awards ceremony on 23 March.

The winners of ten awards categories will receive a cash prize and support from innovation experts at the Academic Health Science Network for the North East and North Cumbria to progress their ideas.

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