2992 – Roamer: a european roadmap for mental health research

Abstract

To reduce the huge impact of mental disorders in the European society we need to increase our knowledge on their determinants, how to prevent them, and how to improve the efficacy and effectiveness of treatments. There are clear indicators that funding for mental health disorder research is much lower than the corresponding impact on health. In this context, the ROAMER project, funded under the European Commission FP7 program, aims to develop a comprehensive and integrated mental health research roadmap, orientated to translational research. To ensure an effective and widely accepted Roadmap, we want the process to be inclusive and participatory, incorporating a large diversity of research scientists from many disciplines and also incorporating the view of users, carers, professionals and policy makers and funding institutions. We have established six domains: i) infra-structures and capacity building, ii) biomedicine, iii) psychological treatments and processes, iv) social and economic aspects, v) public health, and vi) wellbeing. Within each of the domains, we will describe the state-ofthe- art of the research, will enumerate of gaps in current knowledge, as well as the advances needed in research in their field. Work groups have been established in each area. A much larger participation of scientists and stakeholders will be achieved through mail and web surveys. Documents will be available at the ROAMER web page ( www.roamer-mh.org ). Consensus in each of the stages will be achieved using an adapted Delphi method.