An international PhD student from the University of Huddersfield ‘s Department of Pharmacy in the School of Applied Sciences has won a prestigious award for her research on how community pharmacies can contribute to preventing suicide in low and middle-income countries, in particular within her home country of Nigeria.
Somto Chike-Obuekwe has been bestowed the Martin Lawlor Research Bursary Award, a prestigious bursary conferred by Martin Lawlor’s family and supported by the UK’s leading research programme into suicide prevention in clinical services, the ‘National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health’ (NCISH) and the mental health charity ‘State of Mind Sport’.
Dr Martin Lawlor was a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist who specialised in self-harm and suicide research and was a friend and colleague of the NCISH. The award supports early career researchers in the UK and Ireland to expand their knowledge and improve wider understanding of and practice in self-harm or suicide prevention and provides an opportunity to engage with other researchers in self-harm and suicide prevention.
Somto will be using the award to attend the 32nd World Congress by the ‘International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP)’ in Piran, Slovenia from 19 – 23 September 2023 and said she is looking forward to presenting her findings on the contribution of community pharmacists in suicide prevention in Nigeria with delegates at the conference.
