Health Psychology Professor clinches top RSE Award

Glasgow Caledonian University Professor of Health Psychology Jamie Frankis has received a Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) Award to develop the very first LGBTQIA+ mental health network for Scotland.

Professor Frankis, in collaboration with Dr Hazel Marzetti from University of Edinburgh, were awarded £17,000 to set up the network, and it is one of only 33 “exceptional research projects” chosen to receive a share of the £617,000 funding in the RSE spring 2023 Research Awards Programme.

Professor Frankis, who is the School of Health and Life Sciences Research Centre for Health (ReaCH) Sexual Health and Blood Borne Viruses Research Group Co-Lead and a Professor in the Department of Nursing and Community Health, was delighted at the funding announcement.

He said: “Receiving this prestigious grant from the Royal Society of Edinburgh will enable us to bring together researchers, practitioners and, crucially, LGBTQIA+ communities for the first time to tackle our mental health and wellbeing inequalities.

“Working across our multiple communities is critical as we face distinct yet interconnected challenges to our health and wellbeing. We believe these are best solved by taking a community-based approach, combining the strengths of multiple disciplines, which this network will enable.”

The two-year project entitled Developing an Interdisciplinary LGBTQIA+ Mental Health Network for Scotland builds on years of mental health research carried out by Professor Frankis over the years. He will be Principal investigator in the study alongside Dr Marzetti as Co-investigator.

He added: “In Scotland, most LGBTQIA+ mental health research has focused on gay and bisexual men (GBM). Our longitudinal research suggests 40% of GBM in Scotland have been diagnosed with anxiety and/or depression, three times higher than our heterosexual, cisgender peers.

“While our emerging research has identified suicide as a major public health challenge among LGBTQIA+ youth, remaining mental health studies with LGBTQIA+ folk have included few Scotland-based participants.

“While we know that other LGBTQIA+ folk have even poorer mental health outcomes and greater experiences of suicide than GBM, very limited evidence addresses the Scottish context. Critically, this has not always translated into local service provision or policy.

“In Scotland, key service providers, such as Mental Health Foundation, are keen to work with LGBTQIA+ populations, and LGBTQIA+ facing services, such as Waverley Care, are well placed for collaboration, but little LGBTQIA+ tailored mental health provision currently exists.

“While our work shows LGBTQIA+ folk face unique barriers when accessing statutory services due to our sexual and gender minority status, research has yet to examine our communities’ experiences of mental health services.

“To create a community of practice that brings together academic, service provider, policy and LGBTQIA+ communities to commission, design and implement tailored LGBTQIA+ mental health services, we need dedicated space to forge connections and develop our ideas, and this is why we need to set up Scotland’s Interdisciplinary LGBTQIA+ Mental Health Network.”

Dr Marzetti, University of Edinburgh Research Associate, said she was delighted to receive the network funding with Professor Frankis and can’t wait to get started on the project.

“This RSE Award will provide us with an incredible opportunity to work across sectors to facilitate learning, research and practice, which we hope will make a huge difference to the mental health and wellbeing of LGBTQIA+ people in Scotland. In my own area of suicide research, this opportunity comes at an extremely important time, with the implementation of Scotland’s new suicide prevention strategy beginning across sectors and communities,” she added.