Dr Jacks Bennett

Dr Jacks Bennett is a psychologist and public health researcher interested in mental health and wellbeing in higher education. Jacks’ doctoral work examined the impact of a significant investment in new student wellbeing support services in 2018 at a large UK university. It was one of the first studies of its kind to investigate impact and effectiveness of non-clinical advisory support for student populations.

Her current research interests are prevalence, trends and educational/social factors related to student mental health and wellbeing. That includes mental health inequalities (and their intersections) such as gender, disability, socio-economic status and ethnic background in relation to wellbeing and educational attainment.

Jacks has worked as a (senior) research associate at University of Bristol since 2017. For the last five years, she has helped deliver and analyse findings from the insitution's annual Student Wellbeing Survey, helping to inform mental health strategy and policy. She has also worked with Smarten - a UKRI-funded national student mental health research network - to develop national guidance for measuring mental health and wellbeing in student cohorts.

Keywords: student mental health, student wellbeing, support interventions, MH and depression/anxiety in student populations

Jacks is part of several Bristol research groups: The Elizabeth Blackwell Mental Health in Young People Research Initiative, Centre for Academic Mental Health, Bristol’s Suicide and Self Harm Research group, and the Behavioural Genetics Research group.
She is a member of SMaRteN, a national research network funded by UK Research and Innovation, led by King's College London, focusing on student mental health in higher education.

Current supervisor: Dr Judi Kidger

PhD supervisors (2018-2022): Prof D Gunnell, Prof Claire Haworth, Dr Judi Kidger