Mental Health Retrosight: Understanding the Returns From Research (Lessons From Schizophrenia): Policy Report.

This study examines the impacts arising from neuroscience and mental health research going back 20-25 years, and identifies attributes of the research, researchers or research setting that are associated with translation into patient benefit, in the particular case of schizophrenia. The study combined two methods: forward-tracing case studies to examine where scientific advances of 20 years ago have led to impact today; and backward-tracing perspectives to identify the research antecedents of today's interventions in schizophrenia. These research and impact trails are followed principally in Canada, the UK and the USA. The headline findings are as follows: The case studies and perspectives support the view that mental health research has led to a diverse and beneficial range of academic, health, social and economic impacts over the 20 years since the research was undertaken.Clinical research has had a larger impact on patient care than basic research has over the 20 years since the research was undertaken.Those involved in mental health research who work across boundaries are associated with wider health and social benefits.Committed individuals, motivated by patient need, who effectively champion research agendas and/or translation into practice are key in driving the development and implementation of interventions.This study provides an overview of the methods and presents the full set of findings, with the policy provocations they raise, and an emerging research agenda. It has been written for funders of biomedical and health research and health services, health researchers, and policymakers in those fields. It will also be of interest to those involved in research and impact evaluation.

Public acceptability of government intervention to change health-related behaviours: a systematic review and narrative synthesis.

BACKGROUND: Governments can intervene to change health-related behaviours using various measures but are sensitive to public attitudes towards such interventions. This review describes public attitudes towards a range of policy interventions aimed at changing tobacco and alcohol use, diet, and physical activity, and the extent to which these attitudes vary with characteristics of (a) the targeted behaviour (b) the intervention and (c) the respondents. METHODS: We searched electronic databases and conducted a narrative synthesis of empirical studies that reported public attitudes in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand towards interventions relating to tobacco, alcohol, diet and physical activity. Two hundred studies met the inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Over half the studies (105/200, 53%) were conducted in North America, with the most common interventions relating to tobacco control (110/200, 55%), followed by alcohol (42/200, 21%), diet-related interventions (18/200, 9%), interventions targeting both diet and physical activity (18/200, 9%), and physical activity alone (3/200, 2%). Most studies used survey-based methods (160/200, 80%), and only ten used experimental designs. Acceptability varied as a function of: (a) the targeted behaviour, with more support observed for smoking-related interventions; (b) the type of intervention, with less intrusive interventions, those already implemented, and those targeting children and young people attracting most support; and (c) the characteristics of respondents, with support being highest in those not engaging in the targeted behaviour, and with women and older respondents being more likely to endorse more restrictive measures. CONCLUSIONS: Public acceptability of government interventions to change behaviour is greatest for the least intrusive interventions, which are often the least effective, and for interventions targeting the behaviour of others, rather than the respondent him or herself. Experimental studies are needed to assess how the presentation of the problem and the benefits of intervention might increase acceptability for those interventions which are more effective but currently less acceptable.

International comparative performance of mental health research, 1980-2011.

Scientific understanding of mental illness, mental health and their neurobiological and psychosocial underpinnings has greatly increased in the last three decades. Yet, little is known about the landscape of this knowledge and how and where it is evolving. This paper provides a bibliometric assessment of mental health research (MHR) outputs from 1980 to 2011. MHR papers were retrieved using three strategies: from key mental health journals; using US National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) keywords; and from additional journals in which mental health topics accounted for over 75% of papers. The number of papers per year increased over time in absolute terms and as a proportion of total medical output. The US's proportion of world publication output dropped from 60% in 1980 to 42% in 2011, while the EU increased its share from 27% to 40%. Countries with greater research intensity in mental health generally had higher citation impact, such as the US, UK, Canada and the Netherlands. MHR also became more collaborative: 3% of all MHR papers published in 1980 were the result of international collaboration compared to 22% in 2011. We conclude by noting that the rise in MHR appears to be due to funding and that bibliometrics can help highlight the potential drivers of variation in performance of MHR systems. The paper provides an analytical basis for benchmarking MHR trends in the future.

The European Alcohol and Health Forum: First Monitoring Progress Report.

The European Alcohol and Health Forum was launched in June 2007 following the adoption by the European Commission in October 2006 of the EU strategy to reduce alcohol-related harm. It began as a stakeholder platform of 50 founding members from production and sales organisations, media and advertising organisations, NGOs that work to limit alcohol-related harm, research organisations, professional bodies and others. Membership of the Forum is voluntary and members are expected to commit formally and publicly to concrete actions to reduce alcohol-related harm. These concrete actions are referred to as "commitments." Each commitment must be put in writing in a standardised commitment form, which also includes monitoring information. Such information includes details of the objectives of the commitments, resources allocated to them and outputs produced, as well as dissemination of the results of the commitments alongside other information.

Assessing the Impacts of Revising the Tobacco Products Directive: Study to Support a DG SANCO Impact Assessment.

Tobacco use is one of the largest avoidable causes of morbidity and premature death in the EU. Whilst smoking prevalence in the EU has been declining over the past 30 years, smoking has remained more prevalent among men than women in the EU-27, with some of the new Member States reporting the widest gaps between male and female smokers. For young smokers (13 to 15 years old) this situation is somewhat reversed, with slightly more girls than boys smoking. Against this background, the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO) considered a revision of the Tobacco Products Directive 2001/37/EC across five general areas: scope of the directive, labelling requirements, registration and market control fees, ingredients, and sales arrangements. More specifically, the types of policy options under consideration included (but were not limited to): an increase of warning label sizes on the back of packaging to 100%, a restriction for the display of products at retail outlets and an introduction of additional measurement method for TNCO (the modified ISO method) with maximum limits set accordingly. DG SANCO commissioned RAND Europe to provide support in assessing the potential health, macroeconomic, and compliance cost and administrative burden impacts of revising the Tobacco Products Directive. In addition to assessing impacts, the study provides an up-to-date overview of the evidence and basis for current tobacco product regulation that may be of interest to a wider audience interested in tobacco control policies.