PhD Project – What community-based, public health interventions might have combined impacts on alcohol and substance misuse, domestic violence and mental health?

 Student: Kate Allen

Supervisors: Dr Vashti Berry, Chris Bonnel (LSHTM), Professor Tamsin Ford CBE (Cambridge)  Professor GJ Melendez Torres

This PhD study will investigate whether there are effective community-based interventions that could better serve families affected by multiple adversities, by responding to needs in more than one domain.

Despite a recognition of the overlap in risks for domestic violence, parental alcohol and drug misuse and poor mental health, service responses to these issues have developed along discrete lines (often with distinct paradigms and professional frameworks) and continue to be largely siloed in their commissioning and provision across public health, mental health, policing and social care.

The PhD will involve a series of inter-related studies that aim: to investigate what interventions delivered in the community might have combined impacts on all three public health issues; to use existing datasets to explore the prevalence of the ‘toxic trio’ in families, and the clustering of individual, family and community risk factors that might be addressed by early intervention; and to understand what current service-users and professionals consider would provide more effective support for children and families affected by violence, poor mental health and parental substance misuse.

Systematic Review and ICA Protocol:
Family focused interventions and intervention components that have combined or common impacts across domestic violence, mental ill-health and substance misuse: A systematic review and intervention components analysis protocol