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[1][circular reference]. In 2019, she was elected as a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.[2]
Education
John's parents arrived in London from Kerala in 1966.[3] She was born and grew up in London. She was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls[4][circular reference] and then Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School[5][circular reference] where she qualified as a doctor.[6] During her medical degree she intercalated to study sociology, which began an interest in inequality.[3] She earned a Medical Doctorate at Swansea University in 2011, where she established a Suicide and Self-Harm research group.[7][8]
Career
She moved to Swansea as a junior doctor, where she worked in accident and emergency at Morriston Hospital.[3] John has been a general practitioner, a medical advisor to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and a Clinical Assistant in Psychiatry.[3] 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.[9]
Mental health, including prevention of suicide and self-harm
Her expertise lie in epidemiology, suicide and mental disorders.[10] She is a Principal Investigator with the National Centre for Mental Health, where she leads the informatics group.[8] She is a Farr Institute Investigator where uses big data to understand mental health in young people.[11] 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.[12][13]
John's Adolescent Data Platform, funded by MQ, is the biggest of its kind for young people's mental health.[14][15] It brings together scientists from several universities, aiming to make it easier for young people to access quality mental health services.[15] She received an Arts Council of Wales grant to partner with an artist and help young people express what they are thinking.[16] She worked with Self-Harm Research UK (SHARE) to better understand and support people who self-harm.[17]
She developed the Wales strategy for suicide and self-harm.[3][18] She is particularly concerned about cyberbullying and the impacts it has on young people.[19][20] In 2018 she found victims of cyberbullying are more than twice as likely to enact suicidal behaviour.[21][22]
In 2022 John was part of a group examining the use of machine learning in suicide prevention.[23]
