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A researcher from Imperial’s School of Public Health has been awarded a Fellowship from the Medical Research Foundation to develop and test a new digital tool designed to help young people experiencing suicidal thoughts connect with trusted people in their lives at the moments they need support most.

, Advanced Research Fellow in the School of Public Health, will lead a project that uses a mobile phone app to provide personalised ‘social connection nudges’. The tool aims to encourage young people to connect with trusted friends, family members or others at moments when support is most needed.

Dr Dewa’s research focuses on how social connections, including relationships with friends, family and trusted adults, can protect against poor mental health and suicide. She works closely with young people to co-design research, including co-producing the award-winning short film Nexus, which shares research insights on mental health and social isolation.

As part of the Fellowship, Dr Dewa and her team will run a trial involving young people aged 18 to 25 who experience suicidal thoughts. The project will adapt an existing mobile phone app to deliver timely, personalised prompts that encourage social connection. These may include sending a message, arranging a video call or meeting in person with someone the individual trusts.

The ‘social connection nudges’ will be developed using artificial intelligence and co-produced with young people who have lived experience of self-harm and suicidal thoughts. These lived experience experts will be involved at every stage of the research to ensure the tool remains relevant, acceptable and capable of making a real-world impact.

The Medical Research Foundation Fellowship will also enable Dr Dewa to explore how co-production with lived experience experts influences the design, uptake and delivery of digital mental health tools. Findings from the project will inform a future larger-scale trial and contribute to wider efforts to strengthen social connections and reduce suicide risk among young people.

On receiving the Fellowship Dr Dewa said: " I am incredibly excited and honoured to have received this Fellowship. Young people experiencing suicidal thoughts often feel isolated at the exact moment they most need support, and this research will develop and test a new approach to explore whether technology can help strengthen real-world human connection at those moments. Social connection is one of the strongest protective factors for mental health and suicide, yet we still know surprisingly little about how digital technology can be used to strengthen those connections in real time.

"What is particularly important to me is that this work is being co-produced with young people with lived experience throughout, ensuring the research remains grounded in what young people actually need and want. The fellowship will also allow me to bring together expertise across youth mental health and suicide research, co-production, trials and AI-supported intervention development in a way that has not really been done before.

"I hope this research will help lay the foundations for new, scalable ways of supporting young people earlier, more personally, and more meaningfully.”