Professor Rhiannon Corcoran PhD
Professor of Psychology and Public Mental Health Primary Care & Mental Health
- Work email Rhiannon.Corcoran@liverpool.ac.uk
Research
Research Overview
My research focuses on psychological, social and environmental mechanisms and determinants of mental distress and wellbeing. In particular I am interested in social cognition and on how our living environment affects our ability to feel good and function well. As an applied social scientist, my mission is to put research findings into practice. I do this by combining my work at the university with my work as a co-director of Prosocial Place , a social enterprise that specialises in putting wellbeing and mental health at the heart of place-making and regeneration. In this capacity I have worked on several national programmes such as the NHS Healthy New Towns Initiative and with DLUHC, DCMS and Design Council.
My work in social cognition involves both 'clinical' and non-clinical groups of people where I have a particular interest in the psychosis spectrum, common mental distress and the autistic spectrum.
I use diverse methods within quantitative and qualitative approaches including real world and realistic evaluation, quasi-experimental and neuroscientific techniques.
The psychological, social and environmental determinants of mental health and wellbeing
I study the socio-cognitive, affective and societal mechanisms underlying mental health and wellbeing using converging methods. I adopt transdiagnostic, dimensional symptom -based approaches to my research into social cognition, decision-making and reasoning while exploring the interaction of these with the wider determinants of mental health and wellbeing.
I am particularly interested in the interaction between people's mental health and wellbeing and their living environment and communities. I direct the Prosocial Place Programme, a multidisciplinary knowledge exchange and action research initiative that combines knowledge bases of health and wellbeing and urban design/ planning. I lead the Community Wellbeing Evidence Programme for the UK's What Works Centre for Wellbeing.
The Psychology of Shared Reading
I have an interest in practices such as Shared Reading that offer community and a way to reframe personal experiences in a beneficial and sustainable manner but which themselves are not therapy. In this work I collaborate with Englosh scholars Prof. Phil Davis and Dr. Josie Billington and with The Reader Organisation
Research Group Membership
Research Grants
Mental Health Research for Innovation Centre (M-RIC)
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
January 2023 - December 2027
Eurovision 2023 Evaluation: Wellbeing and Sense of Community (HLS Work Package)
LIVERPOOL CITY COUNCIL (UK)
February 2023 - December 2023
Evaluating the health impact and cost-effectiveness of Ways-to-Wellbeing, a whole system approach to mitigate poverty over the life course
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
May 2021 - May 2024
NIHR ARC 2 national social care implementation projects
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK), LCCG - LIVERPOOL CLINICAL COMMISSIONING GROUP (UK)
October 2019 - March 2026
GroundsWell: Community-engaged and Data-informed Systems Transformation of Urban Green and Blue Space for Population Health
MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
October 2021 - September 2026
Covid-SMART Release & Return
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
February 2022 - July 2022
Re-Liv-E
DEPARTMENT FOR CULTURE, MEDIA & SPORT (UK)
April 2021 - June 2021
Vaccine Bus
LIVERPOOL CITY COUNCIL (UK)
October 2021 - January 2022
North West Coast CLAHRC
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK), LCCG - LIVERPOOL CLINICAL COMMISSIONING GROUP (UK)
January 2014 - June 2021
Co-creating online literary resources to build a national future for reader volunteering and a real-world legacy of the Cultural Value Project.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
June 2017 - May 2018
Facilitate public led research into inequalities in mental health care
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE (UK)
November 2016 - June 2021
Bringing Wellbeing to Community.
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, WHAT WORKS WELLBEING (UK)
June 2015 - April 2021
The Art of Social Prescribing: informing policy on creative interventions in mental health care.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
June 2014 - May 2015
The Prosocial Place Programme: Pilot Studies.
LCCG - LIVERPOOL CLINICAL COMMISSIONING GROUP (UK)
July 2013 - July 2017
Assessing the intrinsic value, and health and well-being benefits, for individual and community, of The Reader Organisation's Volunteer Reader Scheme.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
September 2013 - September 2014
Reading as Catalyst for Change.
MERSEY CARE NHS FOUNDATION TRUST (UK)
April 2015 - October 2019