£2.2m boost for pioneering 'big data' research into mental health

March 2018: Novel research aimed at better understanding mental health conditions such as depression is to receive a £2.2 million investment.

Congratulations to Prof Andrew McIntosh (Division of Psychiatry, CCBS), who has been awarded a prestigious Medical Research Council Data Pathfinder Award. The project will pool data from several sources including anonymised health records, genetics and psychological studies to build a picture of the development of mental health conditions like depression.

Together with backing from the University of Edinburgh, the award will also be used to create secure facilities for health data research, which will form a vital resource for Scottish researchers.

The project builds on Scotland’s expertise in health data science and ties in with the city of Edinburgh’s ambition to become the data capital of Europe. It heralds a step-change in the approach to understanding mental health.

Our vision is to make meaningful links between ongoing research studies spanning the whole lifespan and anonymised health records to better understand the causes and consequences of mental health conditions. We hope that this will enable more effective treatments and ultimately pave the way for improving resilience to common mental health disorders.

This combination of resources means Edinburgh is poised to make significant advances in mental health research based upon rapidly developing resources for data science that are unparalleled in the UK.

Andrew McIntoshProfessor of Biological Psychiatry, CCBS

£2.2m boost for pioneering 'big data' research into mental health

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