Researchers from King's College London, University College London, the Schizophrenia Research Foundation (Chennai, India), the University of Ibadan (Nigeria), and the University of the West Indies (Trinidad) will collaborate in a new international project which aims to understand the causes and outcomes of psychosis across different populations over time.
The DELTA project (DisEntangling the aetiological complexity of psychosis: A Life course Trajectories Approach) is funded by a Wellcome Discovery Award and will be carried out over five years from March 2027.
Psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, often cause considerable distress and disability. However, experiences of psychosis vary significantly from person to person. Symptoms can begin at different ages, develop in different ways, and respond differently to treatment, making it difficult to identify the factors that shape outcomes.
The DELTA project aims to address this challenge by investigating how biological, psychological, and social factors work together over the course of a person's life to influence the onset and progression of psychosis. Researchers will use a unique combination of 14 global data resources to explore how risk and protective factors combine and interact in pathways to the onset of psychosis. They will then examine how these pathways differ by generation, location, sex, and ethnic background.
We are delighted to receive funding from Wellcome for our ambitious programme of research. Psychoses are often highly distressing and can have long term impacts on mental, physical, and social health. We urgently need to better understand how risks combine over time to influence onset of psychoses and subsequent outcomes to directly inform the development and delivery of novel, targeted interventions.
Professor Craig Morgan, Professor of Social Epidemiology at King's College London and DELTA Principal Investigator
A key feature of the project is the involvement of people with lived experience of psychosis throughout the research process. This lived experience-led approach will be supported by qualitative research exploring how people understand the causes and outcomes of psychosis in their own lives. Researchers hope these insights will help ensure that future interventions are both scientifically informed and relevant to those most affected.
To build a collaborative platform between Lived Experience Experts and a clinical team forms an innovative nucleus of shared knowledge. I hope that that our collective insights … can contribute to a proactive approach to understanding psychosis to improve treatment which has the potential to be life changing. This research offers hope, the most valuable asset of all.
Rob, a lived experience group member for the DELTA project
One of the things I am most excited about is that lived experience and qualitative research are embedded at the heart of DELTA, rather than added on at the end. People with lived experience will help shape the questions we ask, challenge how we interpret findings and help us think through what a cause-based approach to psychosis could mean in practice. I am really looking forward to leading this work from UCL and ensuring those perspectives influence the programme as a whole.
Dr Patrick Nyikavaranda, Senior Research Fellow and DELTA Co-Investigator, leading the lived experience platform and qualitative research, UCL
Alongside advancing understanding of psychosis, the project will create valuable long-term data resources for the wider scientific community.
The project is led by an interdisciplinary team at King's College London comprising: Professor Craig Morgan (PI), Professor Paola Dazzan, Professor Nikos Koutsouleris, Dr Jenny Kravariti, Professor Robin Murray, Professor Daniel Stahl, Dr Evangelos Vassos, Dr Helen Baldwin, Dr Andrew Lawrence, Dr Patrick Nyikavaranda (UCL) and Dr Thara Rangaswamy, (Director of the Schizophrenia Research Fundation, India)
The team hopes the findings will transform understanding of why psychosis develops differently in different people and provide a foundation for more personalised approaches to treatment and care.
