Improving Access
to Preventative Mental Health Support
Behavioural Science. Health Inequalities. Service Improvement.
The Problem
A preventative mental-health service had capacity to support more people, yet awareness and uptake remained low — including within communities experiencing higher levels of mental-health need and socioeconomic disadvantage.
The challenge was not simply how to attract more people, but to understand what was getting in the way of people finding, understanding and accessing support that could benefit them.
The Approach
I led a six-month behavioural science trial, combining population and service data, behavioural insight and lived-experience feedback to better understand barriers across the journey from awareness to access.
Using behavioural science alongside service-improvement methods, I identified where people were most likely to disengage and where changes to the service, environment and communication could make access easier.
The Intervention
A suite of behaviourally informed, targeted interventions were developed and implemented, working together to address different barriers across the user journey.
These included:
Increasing visibility and awareness within communities experiencing higher levels of unmet need through empathetic design of engaging resources and materials
Developing clearer, more accessible and behaviourally informed communications
Reducing friction within the route into the service
Working through trusted people, harnessing community connections and existing health networks to extend reach
Improving key points in the physical and service environment to make access feel clearer and more approachable.
The interventions were tested and refined throughout the project using an iterative service improvement approach.
The Results
Over the six month trial, we saw a 36% increase in average monthly uptake.
Average monthly referrals increased from 28.3 to 44 people compared with the previous year, representing a statistically significant overall increase.
One of the specifically targeted geographical areas also saw a statistically significant increase in access, with positive movement observed in another targeted area.
My Role
I led the project from problem identification and behavioural diagnosis through to intervention ideation, implementation and evaluation, working alongside partners across design, health and community settings.
The project brought together behavioural science, health inequalities and service improvement to translate insight into practical, measurable change.