Wei Song

Wei is a PhD candidate in the Health Policy team in the Centre for Health Economics (CHE). Before joining CHE he completed an MSc in Health Economics from the University of York. Wei’s PhD work looks at the impact from physical health shocks to mental health status and utilisation using survey and administrative data. His other work includes looking at the policy impact of disinvestments of regional funding and services to mental health of young adults, and measuring NHS mental health care outputs, outcomes and productivity.

Our 60 seconds interview with Wei:

What do you do in the field of mental health?

My research aims at contributing to existing literature on mental and physical health comorbidity. Major adverse health events (collectively named physical health shocks) could have consequences on economic activities and mental health. I work towards isolating these effects to look at how mental health is negatively impacted by health shocks, and if the impact varies for populations with different characteristics.

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

There is growing awareness of the importance of mental health and the challenges we currently face in tackling mental health issues. I hope more research in this field could inform policies that provide better coverage for mental health care to help with a positive shift in normalising and recognising mental health problems, and improve population wellbeing.

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

For me, it is the process of getting to know what information is currently available in the UK context when it comes to mental health data, as well as planning the analysis in a way that attributes variations in an outcome – changes in mental health status, or mental health service utilisation – to variations in physical health.

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

While I think positive policy change will be the goal, I am happy that access and quality to routine and detailed mental health datasets have been improving as a result of more robust research in the economics of mental health.

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

The pandemic, as well as global geopolitics has seen xenophobic sentiments brought up more to the surface, which is at times a challenge. When I get nervous, introspection might not always work. So I select calm and neutral exposures, like reading a book on philosophy – that, or eating a watermelon when they are in season.

Read Wei's student profile