Ann John | |
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Employer | Swansea University |
Known for | Adolescent mental health, Suicide and Self-harm prevention |
Ann John, FLSW is a Professor in Public Health and Psychiatry at the Swansea University Medical School. She chairs the National Advisory Group to Welsh Government on the prevention of suicide and self-harm. She is an honorary consultant in Public Health medicine for Public Health Wales and Trustee of the Mental Health Foundation. In 2019, she was elected as a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
Education
John's parents arrived in London from Kerala in 1966. She was born and grew up in London. She was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls and then Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School where she qualified as a doctor. During her medical degree she intercalated to study sociology, which began an interest in inequality. She earned a Medical Doctorate at Swansea University in 2011, where she established a Suicide and Self-Harm research group.
Career
She moved to Swansea as a junior doctor, where she worked in accident and emergency at Morriston Hospital. John has been a general practitioner, a medical advisor to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and a Clinical Assistant in Psychiatry. She is now an academic researcher and has contributed considerably to research into children and young people's mental health and suicide and self-harm prevention.
Mental health, including prevention of suicide and self-harm
Her expertise lie in epidemiology, suicide and mental disorders. She is a Principal Investigator with the National Centre for Mental Health, where she leads the informatics group. She is a Farr Institute Investigator where uses big data to understand mental health in young people. In 2017, after looking at data on psychotropic prescribing from over 300,000 patients aged between 6 and 18 years old, guidance was issued on managing depression and antidepressant prescribing to children and young people (in particular citalopram) and access to talking therapies.
John's Adolescent Data Platform, funded by MQ, is the biggest of its kind for young people's mental health. It brings together scientists from several universities, aiming to make it easier for young people to access quality mental health services. She received an Arts Council of Wales grant to partner with an artist and help young people express what they are thinking. She worked with Self-Harm Research UK (SHARE) to better understand and support people who self-harm.
She developed the Wales strategy for suicide and self-harm. She is particularly concerned about cyberbullying and the impacts it has on young people. In 2018 she found victims of cyberbullying are more than twice as likely to enact suicidal behaviour.
In 2022 John was part of a group examining the use of machine learning in suicide prevention.
References
- Mental Health Foundation
- Wales, The Learned Society of. "Ann John". The Learned Society of Wales. Retrieved 2023-08-22.
- ^ "Ann John". www.swansea.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2018-04-23. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls
- Charing Cross and Westminster Medical Schoo
- "Professor Ann John | NCMH". NCMH. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- "Suicide and Self Harm Satellite | Cochrane Common Mental Disorders". cmd.cochrane.org. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- ^ "Ann John". The Conversation. 25 January 2018. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- "Professor Ann John". www.swansea.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2018-04-23. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- "Professor Ann John". www.swansea.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2018-04-23. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- SemiColonWeb. "Prof Ann John | PACTS". www.pacts.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- "Farr Institute | Using Big Data to Understand Mental Health in Young People". www.farrinstitute.org. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- Knapton, Sarah (2016-09-08). "Doctors prescribing anti-depressant drugs linked to suicidal thoughts to teens against advice, study finds". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- "This data platform aims to get the answers we need faster on young people's mental health". MQ: Transforming Mental Health. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- ^ "New data platform promises 'step change' in young people's mental health research". MQ: Transforming Mental Health. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- Youle, Richard (2017-08-21). "Young people in Swansea were asked how they felt and created these 3D images". walesonline. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- "Shareuk Needs Your Help Regarding Selfharm | PAPYRUS". www.papyrus-uk.org. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- John, Ann; Dennis, M.; Kosnes, L.; Gunnell, D.; Scourfield, J.; Ford, D. V.; Lloyd, K. (2014-11-01). "Suicide Information Database-Cymru: a protocol for a population-based, routinely collected data linkage study to explore risks and patterns of healthcare contact prior to suicide to identify opportunities for intervention". BMJ Open. 4 (11): e006780. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006780. ISSN 2044-6055. PMC 4248097. PMID 25424996.
- "Professor Ann John – WISE KIDS Summit 2017". wisekidssummit.uk. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- "Young victims of cyberbullying twice as likely to attempt suicide and self-harm". EurekAlert!. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- "Young victims of cyberbullying twice as likely to attempt suicide and self-harm, study finds". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- John, Ann; Glendenning, Alexander Charles; Marchant, Amanda; Montgomery, Paul; Stewart, Anne; Wood, Sophie; Lloyd, Keith; Hawton, Keith (2018). "Self-Harm, Suicidal Behaviours, and Cyberbullying in Children and Young People: Systematic Review". Journal of Medical Internet Research. 20 (4): e129. doi:10.2196/jmir.9044. PMC 5934539. PMID 29674305.
- Balbuena, Lloyd D.; Baetz, Marilyn; Sexton, Joseph Andrew; Harder, Douglas; Feng, Cindy Xin; Boctor, Kerstina; Lapointe, Candace; Letwiniuk, Elizabeth; Shamloo, Arash; Ishwaran, Hemant; John, Ann; Brantsæter, Anne Lise (2022). "Identifying long-term and imminent suicide predictors in a general population and a clinical sample with machine learning". BMC Psychiatry. 22 (1): 120. doi:10.1186/s12888-022-03702-y. PMC 8848909. PMID 35168594.