SIPHER has reviewed the Scottish Government’s Mental Health Strategies (2017 & 2023) to evaluate their approaches towards mental health. Together with qualitative research on how daily life affects Scots’ mental health, the report offers insights into a preventive policy approach for public mental health. 

This report is part of SIPHER’s collaboration with Public Health Scotland on the Wider Social Determinants of Mental Health Programme, which examines how a systems-thinking approach could benefit policy development.

Read: The Wider Social Determinants of Mental Health in Scotland: Review of Key Policy Documents and Qualitative Literature. September 2024

This report was prepared for the Mental Health Foundation to model the mental health benefits of increasing child payments for households on Universal Credit in England and Wales. Drawing upon and extending a policy already implemented in Scotland, we evaluated the potential effect of introducing payments per child—ranging from £10 to £100—on adult mental well-being.

We used a dynamic microsimulation model to track how changes in household income influence factors like housing quality, nutrition, and social isolation, which in turn affect mental health outcomes, measured by the Short Form 12 Mental Component Score (SF-12 MCS). 

The results demonstrated that larger payments lead to substantial improvements in adult mental health, particularly for women and single-parent households. While this study focuses on adults, it acknowledges the indirect benefits for children.

Read: Modelling the Adult Mental Health Impacts  of Child Payment Policy, October 2024

Our SIPHER Layered Systems Map visually represents how housing impacts health outcomes, combining published evidence with insights from SIPHER’s Community Panels.

This interactive map brings together both lived experiences and research evidence into one user-friendly tool. Stories from community members highlighting housing and health inequalities are embedded within the map, alongside accessible research summaries. Pathways marked in red show key areas identified by the Community Panel but less covered in research.

We offer a video guide to exploring the map and welcome enquiries from anyone interested in using our custom-built tool to create their own systems maps. Please contact: sipher@glasgow.ac.uk

Full details: SIPHER Layered Systems Map

We are excited to launch a new SIPHER webinar series, offering short, informative talks on key aspects of our work and resources. These FREE lunchtime sessions (30-40 minutes) will explore our journey, systems science methods, policy landscapes, and the evidence needs of policymakers. Each online webinar will include a Q&A session and recording will be made available on our website.

Register to attend

Public Involvement in Policy Modelling Research: Learning from SIPHER’s Experience
📅 21 November, 12:30 – 1:10 PM
Join us as we reflect on four years of SIPHER’s Community Panel model, hear from Panel members, and share lessons learned for future research.
Presenter: Ellen Stewart, SIPHER's public engagement lead and Professor of Public Policy and Health at the University of Glasgow.

Measuring Economic Inclusion for local authorities and wards in Great Britain
📅 4 December, 12:30 – 1:10 PM
Explore with us the SIPHER Inclusive Economy datasets and learn how a set of indicators capture economic inclusion and wellbeing and support informed policy-making.
Presenter: Hugh Rice SIPHER Researcher and Research Fellow at the University of Leeds 

On 2nd September 2024, we hosted our final Community Panel Event in Glasgow. Bringing together 12 members of our three panels, we thanked them for their invaluable support and reflected on the key contributions they have made to SIPHER’s research.

Explore the full story: Community Panels Final Event

Exploring the SIPHER Synthetic Population: A tool for policymakers and researchers that overcomes real-world data limitations.

Individual-level data for entire populations is often difficult for researchers and policymakers to access. In our latest blog, Andreas Hoehn, SIPHER Researcher, and Abi Finn, Embedded Researcher at Greater Manchester Combined Authority, showcase the SIPHER Synthetic Population and explain how synthetic population datasets can fill this gap, enabling faster, evidence-based decisions to improve health and reduce inequalities.

All SIPHER blogs>

We’d love to hear from you if you have used our SIPHER Employment and Health Evidence & Gap Map. Whether you accessed it for research or policy work, tell us how you found it and what you used it for. Your feedback will help us improve our tools and resources.  Please direct your comments marked EGM Feedback to sipher@glasgow.ac.uk           

Explore:  SIPHER Employment and Health Evidence and Gap Map

Join us for an exciting showcase event where we invite friends and colleagues, old and new, to join the SIPHER team as we celebrate all we have achieved and mark the end of our SIPHER project.

With presentations and hands-on opportunities to explore our innovative tools we will be:

• Highlighting key research findings
• Demonstrating the applied value of our methods and tools
• Celebrating our achievements from the last 5 ½ years

We will offer online access to parts of the Showcase, but we’d be delighted to have you attend in person if possible. We look forward to welcoming you.

         Register:  SIPHER SHOWCASE

Our thanks to Rodney Appleyard and the team at UK Data Service for inviting SIPHER to be part of their 'The Experts' Expert' podcast! Delighted to have the chance to talk about our SIPHER research and new Synthetic Population in this short series.

Listen at :The Experts’ Expert Podcast

We received excellent feedback from Research Data Scotland staff, including those on secondment to the Scottish Government as part of the UK-wide Administrative Data Research programme, for our Processing Large-Scale Data Efficiently with R’s ‘data.table’ workshop. Presented by SIPHER researcher Andreas Hoehn in August, the course materials are openly available from  GitHub:R’s ‘data.table’ workshop 

Congratulations to Nik Lomax  - SIPHER Co-Lead on our Data & System Monitoring and Policy Microsimulation workstrands -  on his new role leading the £6m Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service (HASP), part of a £22 million investment by Smart Data Research UK. HASP will help address key challenges that cut across health and sustainability, and discover new ways to understand local economies, health, lifestyles, and transportation patterns. Drawing upon data that spans retail, business, transport and infrastructure sectors it will seek to provide integrated datasets for the research community.

Read: £22 million for new smart data services

The Society for Social Medicine & Population Health visited Glasgow in September for their 68th Annual Scientific meeting and SIPHER'S Andreas Hoehn was pleased to present to delegates on SIPHER’s synthetic population for individuals in Great Britain 2019 - 2021.

The 35th International Geographical Congress in Dublin in August 2024 was a rewarding event with several  key SIPHER contributions. In the session Applied Geography: Applied Approaches for Healthy Public Policy, Lisa Garnham and Kat Smith presented 'Health in All Policies?', showcasing UK efforts to use complex systems tools to reduce inequalities and tackle policy silos. Nik Lomax chaired the session and later presented on Spatial variation in health outcomes, discussing the MINOS framework for testing policy interventions on health outcomes.

At the Social Policy Association Annual Conference, Glasgow in July 2024 several of the SIPHER staff team presented including Corinna Elsenbroich on "The Role of Understanding Process in Exploring the Future for Social Policy," Ally Brown on "Health Inequalities: The Fall, Rise, and Future of a Social Policy Puzzle," and Lisa Garnham on "The UK’s Housing Policy Gap." Congratulations to Ellen Stewart who was a conference lead for this successful event.

At the EURO 24 - 33rd European Conference on Operational Research held in Copenhagen, Denmark July 2024 SIPHER researcher Shraddha Ghatkar received helpful feedback following her presentation - A Structured Decision Making approach to Improve Population Health and Reduce Health Inequalities. 

All SIPHER Conference Outputs>

The deadline to submit to Geographical Analysis' special issue on “Advancing Spatial Health Inequalities Research,” co-edited by Alison Heppenstall, Andreas Hoehn, and Nik Lomax, has been extended to 13th December 2024.  The editors are happy to discuss submission ideas on interdisciplinary work exploring theoretical frameworks, innovative methodologies, and novel data sources for tackling persistent health inequalities. So don’t miss your chance to be part of this SIPHER edition!

Details at  Special Issue - Advancing Spatial Health Inequalities Research: Geographical Analysis

PHEM-B toolbox  - The Public Health Economic Models of Behaviour toolbox is designed to enhance public health economic models and drawing from psychology, sociology, economics, and complexity science, it outlines 12 methods, including agent-based modelling, systems mapping, and social network analysis, to better capture how behaviours shape the long-term success of health interventions. This multidisciplinary approach aims to help researchers and policymakers make more informed decisions when designing and evaluating public health strategies. Read: The PHEM-B toolbox of methods for incorporating the influences on Behaviour into Public Health Economic Models BMC Public Health, Oct 2024.

Equivalent income value for SIPHER-7 - our lead on Societal Valuation (Workstrand 6) Aki Tsuchiya and team used data from two waves of online surveys that allows the calculation of overall wellbeing as a single index-equivalent income- based on public preferences. The research highlights variations in preferences by gender, age, and over time, particularly during the pandemic. Read: Eliciting public preferences across health and wellbeing dimensions: an equivalent income value set for SIPHER-7. Health Economics, Sept 2024

The economy as a determinant of population health - A new systematic review from former SIPHER colleague Anna Brook, along with Petra Meier and others explores the bidirectional relationship between aggregate economic activity (AEA) and population health in High-Income Countries. Analysing 51 studies, the research found no consistent causal link between changes in AEA and health outcomes like mortality or life expectancy. However, there is tentative evidence that better population health may contribute to economic prosperity. The relationship between AEA and health inequalities remains inconclusive. Read:  What is the relationship between changes in the size of economies and mortality derived population health measures in high income countries: a causal systematic review. Social Science and Medicine, Volume 357, Sept 2024

Mitigating housing market shocks - co-authors including SIPHER's Corinna Elsenbroich and Alison Heppenstall explore the integration of reinforcement learning (RL) with agent-based models (ABMs) to simulate the UK housing market's response to economic shocks. By allowing agents to learn and adapt in real-time, the model effectively forecasts house prices and adjusts for changing conditions, such as mortgage interest rates. The findings highlight how RL can enhance ABM decision-making frameworks and be applied to complex housing markets. Read: Mitigating housing market shocks: an agent-based reinforcement learning approach with implications for real-time decision support. Journal of Simulation, 1–19. July 2024

All SIPHER publications>

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Yin Nwe (Norah) Soe as our new SIPHER Consortium Manager.  Norah brings a wealth of experience, with a medical background, an MSc in Global Health, and ten years in project management. She will help guide the final phase of our project work until its completion in March next year.

Clare Bambra SIPHER Health Inequalities Expert has been elected as a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina established in 1652. Honoured in recognition of her international research on health inequalities, Clare will represent the academy providing impartial scientific advice to policymakers across Germany and Europe, as well as public audiences.

SIPHER Director Petra Meier has been appointed as the Academic Lead for Healthy and Equitable Futures at Glasgow Changing Futures (GCF), the University’s initiative to tackle key societal challenges through research, innovation, education, and partnerships. With her extensive experience and dedication to addressing health inequalities, Petra will play a crucial role in advancing this priority area, guiding impactful efforts towards creating a healthier, more equitable future.

Meet the SIPHER team>