Panos Spanakis, Honorary Fellow at the Department of Health Sciences, University of York

Panos is an Honorary Fellow in the Mental Health and Addiction Research Group in the Department of Health Sciences.

He completed his PhD in Addiction Psychology at the University of Liverpool. He currently works as a Psychology Lecturer at the Mediterranean College in Greece, and collaborates with the University of Crete as a researcher.

Our 60-second interview with Panos:

What do you do in the field of mental health?

I do research in various areas of mental health, focusing on the areas of Substance Use and Addiction, as well as Health Inequalities among people with severe mental ill health (SMI). In the context of the latter, I have focused primarily on the digital divide and digital exclusion in this population.

What do you find most rewarding and inspiring in this work?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw an unprecedented digitalisation of services, including mental health services. This new way of delivering services is gradually becoming the mainstream option but we need to ensure that no one is left behind, particularly disadvantaged groups in our society, like people with severe mental illness, who face profound health inequalities and are often underrepresented in research and public surveys.

What is the most challenging or complicated aspect of this work?

Digital exclusion is a multifaceted phenomenon. In the SPIDER project, we started unpicking these issues by focusing on an important element: digital skills, and digital competency. However, more factors must be understood and explored as we try to tackle digital exclusion in people with SMI.

What impact do you hope your work is having- or can potentially have?

We hope that it is going to increase awareness about digital exclusion and highlight the existence of a digital divide between people with an SMI diagnosis and those without it. We hope that findings like that will help develop practices to reduce the digital divide, such as ensuring that offline options are still available for those who need them.

Could you share with us one piece of advice that you follow for your own mental health?

Since it’s the Internet we are talking about here, I try to use the Internet in ways that are beneficial for my mental health, for example accessing good quality entertainment, staying in touch with friends and family and completing various daily tasks faster and more hassle-free.