Experts gather as St Andrews hosts European summit on Mental Health and Addictions

Experts from all over the world will gather for a major European conference on mental health and addictions at the University of St Andrews tomorrow (Friday 3 June 2016).

‘Emerging priorities in mental health and addiction: The Virtual World, Ageing and Migration’  will explore key emerging issues facing researchers, practitioners and policymakers under the three areas of the virtual world, ageing and migration.

The one-day event will involve around 100 specialists from 14 countries including Spain, Italy, France, Ireland, Poland, Greece, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania and the UK. 

Organisers hope that by sharing different European perspectives of mental health and addictions, they can work out how best practitioners can work together in future prevention and treatments.

Topics to be discussed include mental health in relation to ageing, use of digital health tools to support individuals with mental health problems, digital life and bereavement, and self-harm in older people. 

Other sessions will look at homelessness amongst older adults, the effect of migration on mental health, the use of film to enhance social connectivity and the consequences of a parent’s mental ill-health to children.

Two St Andrews researchers, Juan Ye and Thomas Eddie, will deliver a session on mobile phone technology and the impact of their use in social situations, while Anne-Marie Mann from the University of Edinburgh will talk about a mobile application she developed to support those recovering from addictions.

The event will also include two sessions led by the Mental Health Foundation: David Crepaz-Keay will discuss the importance of involvement as a way of improving mental health in later life, while Chris O’Sullivan will look at how people can self-manage and support each other using personal health technology.

The conference has been organised jointly by ENTER (European Network for Training, Education and Research in mental health) and the Social Dimensions of Health Institute (SDHI), an interdisciplinary research partnership between the Universities of St Andrews and Dundee.

Conference convenor Alex Baldacchino, Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry and Addictions at the University of St Andrews said: “This conference will be the ideal environment to allow multidisciplinary and multiagency partnerships to work together to identify practical solutions to support these emerging vulnerable populations.”

_{Pictured: University of St Andrews’ School of Medicine (c) University of St Andrews.}