{"id":595713,"date":"2026-08-17T05:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T05:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/595713\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T05:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T05:38:11","slug":"lack-of-diversity-an-obstacle-to-mental-health-data-say-ucc-researchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/595713\/","title":{"rendered":"Lack of diversity an obstacle to mental health data, say UCC researchers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">A new study led by <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41880430.html\"> researchers at UCC <\/a>has found that one of the biggest obstacles facing mental health research is not a lack of technology or data, but a lack of global diversity in the people being studied.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Published in  Nature Mental Health and led by Chilean medic Dr Benjamin Valderrama and neuroscientist Professor John F Cryan, the paper argues that studies on the mental health area have become overwhelmingly concentrated on wealthy, industrialised nations and therefore limiting scientific discovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The authors argue that expanding microbiome gut brain research across Latin America, Africa, Asia and other underrepresented regions is not only an issue of equity, it is crucial if scientists are to uncover universal biological principles which can improve mental health worldwide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">One of the central ideas of the publication is that many countries in the global south provide unique opportunities to understand how environment shapes mental health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Rapid urbanisation, changing food systems, environmental transitions and socioeconomic gradients often exist within relatively small geographical regions, creating what the authors describe as \u201cnatural experiments\u201d that cannot easily be reproduced in laboratories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Dr Valderrama said that people often think about diversity in research as an ethical issue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            \u201cOur argument is that it is also a scientific necessity. If we only study one part of the world, we risk misunderstanding how the microbiome shapes brain health.\u201d\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cMany of the world\u2019s most informative microbiome studies have yet to be done. By studying populations experiencing different diets, environments and lifestyles, we may answer questions about the microbiome-gut-brain axis that simply cannot be answered in highly industrialised settings alone.\u201d Professor Cryan added: \u201cThe microbiome gut brain axis has fundamentally changed how we think about mental health over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cThe next 20 years will depend on thinking globally. The greatest discoveries may come, not from studying more of the same populations, but from embracing the remarkable diversity of people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The authors outline their hope that the study will encourage funders, policymakers and researchers to build more equitable international partnerships and to recognise that understanding the biology of mental health requires studying the full diversity of human populations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new study led by researchers at UCC has found that one of the biggest obstacles facing mental&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[79,835,103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-595713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-cork-news","tag-education","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}