The causes of mental health problems are many and complex. This is why PROMENTA carries out research on mental health and well-being in a holistic perspective – from genetics and biology to local communities and policy. We are particularly concerned with understanding the processes that lead to inequality in mental health and well-being, and in contributing to reducing social inequality in health.
A key goal is to lay the foundation for the development of effective, preventative and health promoting initiatives. An important part of this work is closing the gap between research and practice. PROMENTA therefore collaborates closely with Norwegian municipalities in testing interventions in local communities, so we may promote health and well-being where people live.
Three key questions
We aim to gather knowledge on three key, overarching questions:
- Which processes hinder or promote mental health, drug use and well-being?
- How do social and geographical inequalities in mental health, drug use and well-being develop?
- How can we develop, adapt and evaluate effective interventions promoting good mental health and well-being in municipalities?
To answer these questions we investigate illness preventing and health promoting factors at many levels, including genetic risk, neurocognitive development, the psychosocial environment and socio-cultural and political contexts.
Resources
We use several large longitudinal datasets combining register data, genetically informative data, neuroimaging data, and data collected by mobile applications. Moreover, we make use of geodata, large-scale repeated cross-sectional surveys, and ethnographic fieldwork. Together with relevant users and stakeholders, we conduct and evaluate interventions at the municipality level.
Collaboration
PROMENTA is based at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo (UiO). PROMENTA’s partner institutions are the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, UiO; the University Center for Information Technology, UiO; the Norwegian Institute of Public Health; the Norwegian WHO Healthy Cities Network; Oslo Metropolitan University; Leiden University (the Netherlands); and Virginia Commonwealth University (USA). Several national and international collaborators are associated with the center.
Funding
The Center is funded by the Norwegian Research Council with significant own financing from the consortium partners. PROMENTA Researchers are regularly applying for additional financing from various sources, and associated projects can be found on the pages of the different Research Groups.
Contact
Center Director: Tilmann von Soest
Co-Director for Teaching: Mona Bekkhus
Co-Director for Research: Christian K. Tamnes
Administrative coordinator: Maria Vinje Dodson