218 Chapter 7 policy-makers, not only in the ways of drafting but also on methodological choices and willingness to make the findings actionable and tangible outside of the Academic world. While the objectives of the research and policy worlds will never converge in one, neither will the type of output they produce; the solution is probably having Academic institutions and funders value policy-oriented output most. On the other side, policymakers should be sensible about the need to move scientific research forward through academic publication, accepting the times and costs involved in doing so. RECOMMENDATIONS ON BETTER EVIDENCE FOR BETTER MENTAL HEALTH POLICY Working together to maximise opportunities for closing the mental health gap Since the early stages of my thesis on mental health in early 2019 the topic has gained extensive attention, society-wise but also in several academic disciplines that traditionally under-researched the topic. At the same time, the psychiatric-led fields that conducted most mental health research for the last decades increasingly recognise the need to embrace the different perspectives of public health, behavioural sciences, economics and social policy [31]. This ongoing transformation presents an opportunity to establish an interdisciplinary approach to mental health research and maximize its societal impact. This is despite all the pitfalls discussed in the previous sections, as the evidence produced in this thesis supports the potential of interdisciplinary research to inform Smarter Choices for Better Health. The change in paradigm goes much beyond the research world. The impact of the COVID19 pandemic on mental health has been behind society-wide calls for policy action, even though the reasons for worrying have been in place for much longer. This push brings hope to the challenges of increasing mental health parity within health systems and approaching mental health policy through a whole-government approach, that brings together health, labour, education and other ministries. The so-called emerging mental health crisis has drawn more researchers and policy-makers than ever to focus on the topic. It presents a historic opportunity to achieve progress in redesigning our collaborative approach to mental health. This is the landscape against which this PhD recommendations are provided, purposely delivered to research and policy simultaneously. Equally fueled by the pandemic – and the set of crises that continue widening inequality in our contemporary world – is the increasing vulnerability of particular groups. These are minority groups that have long been living at the margin of society based on their sexual orientation or ethnicity, for instance. But there are also larger demographic groups at significant risk, defined by the intersection of their age, gender and other socioeconomic characteristics. The current attention to the topic provides an excellent window of
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