Overview

This project responded to calls for greater involvement and voice of key stakeholders in research priority setting (Pratt, 2019). This addressed to two key aims of the EMH seed funding scheme: namely holding an inter-disciplinary discussions to inform grant proposals, and the involvement of experts-by-experience – in this case those in task-sharing roles.

The aim of this project was to co-construct the aims and research questions guiding a grant application that will explore the ethical dimensions to task-sharing. To achieve this, the following objectives were set:

1. Identify relevant stakeholders (researchers and health system representatives) and task-sharing experts-by-experience working in projects affiliated with partner organisations to contribute to a participatory workshop.

2. Convene a 3-day participatory workshop involving stakeholders and experts-by-experience to co-construct proposed aims and research questions for a grant proposal.

3. Share the final set of proposed aims and research questions with wider international partners through online consultations to inform the final articulation of research aims and questions for this grant.

Outputs from these activities will be a collaboratively agreed set of priority aims and research questions around the normative dimensions to task-sharing in the Pakistani context. Following online consultation with wider international partners, a final agreed aims and research questions will be produced.

Outcomes

Key findings from in-country workshops were that discussions and priority lists and ranking offered insights into areas of agreement and divergence of perspectives of experts-by-experience (EbE; lay health workers, teachers, and peer volunteers) and mental health professionals and researchers on the role and purpose of task-sharing in global mental health, and its future development. Importantly, further work is required to fully explicate a normative vision for the Global Mental Health task-sharing strategy that is shared between those in stakeholder and EbE roles, and from this, an appreciation of how these normative aims are playing-out at local levels. This priority setting consultation exercise provided essential insights that are not fully reflected in the literature, and that provide a strong justification for further research into the ethical dimensions to task-sharing in global mental health, supporting the research proposal that developed out of this project.

Future Directions

A Career Development Award application was successfully submitted to the Wellcome Trust in the November 2024 application round. Outcome is expected in early March 2025. This award requests a summary of background work leading up to the project, demonstrating the importance of seed funding in facilitating the conduct of pilot or scoping activities to strengthen funding applications.

I have produced a short summary report of the priority setting workshops which has been shared with partners in Pakistan and Ghana (available on request).

I will be publishing both the critical interpretative literature review and summary of priority setting exercises in due course. I am attending a writing retreat in January 2025 to progress these publications.