DrCaragh Behan

Dr Behan’s research spans several interlinked areas:

- Early Intervention in Psychosis: She has conducted health economic evaluations of early-intervention programmes, comparing them in “real world” settings, estimating costs, benefits and outcomes.
- Physical Health in Mental Illness: Particularly, how people with serious mental illness fare physically over the long term, including metabolic risks, mortality, and lifestyle interventions. She led or co-led studies exploring interventions to improve diet, activity, and weight outcomes among people on antipsychotic medication.
- Mental Health of Youth / Students: She has an interest in youth mental health and student mental health, including preventive and early-stage issues.
- Meditation and Mindfulness: She is trained to teach mindfulness and meditation to children, adolescents, and adults, and has published on the benefits of such practices, especially in crisis contexts such as during COVID‐19.
- Health Economics & Service Models: Her PhD work and subsequent studies include economic evaluation of psychiatric services, service models for early intervention, assessing cost-effectiveness and net benefit.

- Supervision of student selected projects (SSP) and academic intern posts in the area of compassionate healthcare, health economics amongst others.