Dr Hannah Bowers

I'm a behavioural scientist based at the Primary Care Research Centre, University of Southampton, researching mental health, neurodivergence, and health inequalities.

Research
Much of my current work sits within MINDS (Mental Illness, Neurodivergence and Distress Studies), where I lead several projects focused on understanding how to support mental health problems in autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD adults. My other projects explore long-term antidepressant use and discontinuation, and mental health in underserved communities (e.g. those experiencing socio-economic difficulties and Gypsy, Romany and Traveller communities).

I specialise in person-based intervention development, an approach that uses in-depth qualitative methods and coproduction (working in partnership with the people most affected) alongside theory, evidence and mixed-methods research.

Education

I am deputy module lead for Medical Humanities and I co-lead the Qualitative Methods teaching in Medicine. Across both strands of teaching, I aim to bring insights from the arts and humanities, qualitative research and coproduction into the classroom, helping students explore the grey areas that are an inherent part of clinical practice. Diagnoses and treatments are essential tools, but people's experiences of them rarely fit neatly into categories, and I want to support future doctors in developing the curiosity and confidence to engage with that complexity and to listen closely to lived experience as a central part of good care.