Dr Heather O'Mahen (her/she)

Orcid ID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3458-430X

I am a Professor of Perinatal and Clinical Psychology, leading a research group focussed on equitably improving women's mental health across the lifespan. This work aims to reduce translational gaps between evidence, policy and practice, both nationally and internationally. 

Our work sits across four connected strands:

·      understanding where individual factors meet social determinants to shape mental health need;

·      understanding what affects access to support;

·      using that knowledge to adapt and test interventions;

·      and working directly with policy makers, service providers and people with lived experience to implement and embed change at scale.

I focus particularly on the perinatal period, from pregnancy through two years postnatal‚ a time of profound biological, social, emotional and functional change with long-term consequences for the whole family. This work is conducted in close partnership with people with lived experience, clinicians and policy makers, to ensure it reaches those who need it most. My team uses creative, technology-enabled approaches‚ including some of the first digital interventions for perinatal depression, and a narrative-driven gamified app for adolescent depression (the DoBAt study). Most recently, I am leading ACORN-II, an NIHR HTA funded multi-site trial of a remotely delivered, group-based intervention for antenatal anxiety, delivered through NHS Talking Therapies with partners and family members included in care.

Our international collaborations span high-, middle/low-income settings, including Australia, South Africa, Uganda, Sweden, the USA and Japan, and my research has been funded by NIH, NIHR, ESRC, MRC and philanthropic sources.

I currently lead the Mental Health Theme for the NIHR Southwest Applied Research Collaboration (Exeter, Plymouth and Bristol), building women's mental health across the lifespan as a strategic priority within a large regional research infrastructure. I am also National Clinical Advisor to NHS England's Perinatal Mental Health Team (since 2022), working alongside policy leads, commissioners, clinicians, service leaders, researchers, charities, government and‚ critically, people with lived experience, to embed perinatal and parent-infant mental health provision across the NHS.

Translating research into practice is central to how I work. Trials from my team‚ (e.g., Netmums, ECHO, ACORN)‚ have informed NICE guidance and shaped national service provision. With Dr Sarah Healy, I co-led development of the Perinatal Competency Framework and Positive Practice Guidance that now defines perinatal mental health practice across NHS Talking Therapies services, and‚ working with CEDAR and funded by NHS England and Health Education England‚I have helped build a perinatally competent workforce through national and regional training programmes, including seven cohorts of the Perinatal Clinical Psychology Training programme and the Southwest Regional Perinatal Mental Health Champions and Supervisors' programme.

I currently co-lead the James Lind Alliance Perinatal Mental Health Research Prioritisation Exercise with Professor Fiona Alderdice and Karen Middleton of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, lead the Mental Health stream of the NIHR Women's Health Collaborative Group, and serve as an Executive Member of the Perinatal Faculty of the British Psychological Society.