Search

Background: Limited research concerning existing inequities in mental health care and support services in the United Kingdom captures perceptions and lived experiences of the significantly underrepresented Muslim population., Methods: Underpinned by social constructivist theory, we used consultation to facilitate public and patient involvement and engagement (PPIE) to identify inequities in mental health care and support experienced by Muslims from minoritised ethnic communities living in deprived areas in Liverpool, UK. The rationale was to (a) better inform standards and policies in healthcare and (b) provide a psychologically safe space to members of the Muslim community to share perceptions and experiences of mental health care and support services. To ensure trustworthiness of the data, member checking was adopted. This paper describes the procedure to achieving this consultation, including our recruitment strategy, data collection and analysis as well as key findings., Findings: Twenty-seven consultees attended the women's consultation and eight consultees attended the men's consultation. Consultees were from Yemeni, Somali, Sudanese, Egyptian, Algerian, Pakistani and Moroccan communities and share the Islamic faith. Four key interlinked themes were identified from consultees' narratives: (1) broken cycle of trust; (2) an overmedicalised model of care; (3) community mental health prevention initiatives; and (4) culturally conscious training and education., Conclusions: The Muslim population has identified numerous barriers to accessing mental health support and there is a need to resource activities that would aid deeper understanding of mental health support needs through continuous and meaningful community initiatives. This would afford mental health practitioners and organisations opportunities for developing realistic anti-racism strategies, effectively adopting social prescription, strengthening partnerships and collaborations aimed at supporting delivery of evidence-based mental health care provisions to tackle mental health inequities., Patient and Public Involvement: This paper reports on the involvement and engagement of Muslims from minoritised ethnic communities living in the Liverpool city region., (© 2024 The Author(s). Health Expectations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Lived experience researchers draw on their lived and living experiences to either lead on or inform research. Their personal experiences are relevant to the research topic and so they must manage the interplay of their health and healthcare experiences with the research, population, and data they work with, as well as the more general challenges of being a researcher. Lived experience researchers must navigate these dilemmas in addition to queries over their competency, due to issues relating to intersectionality and epistemic injustice. This justifies a motivation to better understand the experiences of lived experience researchers and develop appropriate and personalised supervision based on their preferences and needs., Methods: Q methodology was used to identify a collection of identity-related issues that impact lived experience researchers during PhD research in the context of the UK. These issues were presented in the form of 54 statements to 18 lived experience researchers to prioritise as topics to explore in supervision., Result: It was found that lived experiences researchers could be grouped into three distinct factors following an inverted factor analysis: Factor 1: Strengthening my identity, skills, growth, and empowerment; Factor 2: Exploring the emotional and relational link I have with the research and Factor 3: Navigating my lived and professional experiences practically and emotionally. The findings suggest that there may be three types of lived experience researchers, each with different needs from supervision, suggesting the population is heterogeneous., Conclusion: The research identified a deeper understanding of the needs of lived experience researchers and highlights the importance of personalised supervision according to the individual needs of the researcher and their preferences for supervision. The findings reinforce the importance of integrating a clinical dimension into supervision to support the needs of all lived experience researchers., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Collective action is essential to address planetary health as current and future environmental challenges are socioecological and require coordinated, informed, and sustained action from all societal sectors. Education that engages intergenerational communities is a crucial means of building collective action as it provides opportunities to develop an informed citizenry capable of making the necessary decisions to work towards planetary health. Schools are valuable sites of community learning and action, and will benefit from a new orientation towards and commitment to educator training, curriculum development, and youth agency. This orientation is supported by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment's (PISA) 2025 Science Framework, which measures the competence (skills and knowledge) of 15-year-old students. This Personal View describes a new concept, Agency in the Anthropocene, a contributing element of the 2025 Science Framework that defines the way science education could develop agency and hope in this era of socioecological challenges that are impacting planetary health., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests We declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)