Professor Emerita Louise Howard

Professor Louise Howard is Professor Emerita in Women’s Mental Health at King’s College London. She formed the Women’s Mental Health Research Group at King's in 2008, and has been Professor in Women’s Mental Health since 2010 and an Honorary Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She was awarded a prestigious NIHR Research Professorship in 2013 and became an NIHR Senior Investigator in 2019. She was President of the International Marcé (perinatal mental health) Society 2020-2022 and awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Pychiatrists in 2022.

Professor Howard has led a number of research programmes with an aim to improve mental health service policy and practise, including a focus on perinatal mental health and the relationship between violence and mental health. She led research informing the REF 2021 Impact Case Study 'The transformation of perinatal mental health care'. This research informed the updated NICE guidelines on how to identify and treat perinatal mental illness, developed new evidence-based care pathways and was the basis of the specialist training of thousands of clinicians internationally, including via the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Health Education England. Her work also informed pregnancy planning tools commissioned by NHS England and Public Health England, which are available via the Tommy Baby’s Charity website and have been accessed by thousands of women. Her work on domestic abuse, and human trafficking, has similarly impacted on thousands of clinicians, and people with lived experience of abuse and mental health problems, through development of curricula and CPD for international organisations including the World Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization, and recommendations for the NHS.

She studied medicine at University College London including an intercalated BSc in Psychology. She then trained in general medicine in Bloomsbury obtaining the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians in 1991 followed by. psychiatric training at the Maudsley. She obtained a Wellcome Trust Health Services Research Training Fellowship in perinatal psychiatry in 1997, obtained her PhD in 2003 and was appointed Senior Lecturer in 2004, promoted to Professor in 2010.

She has won a number of prizes for her research including the Association of European Psychiatrists Research Prize, the Institute of Psychiatry Dennis Hill Prize, the Royal College of Psychiatrists Bronze Medal research prize and in 2014 the International Marce Society’s Marce Medal for excellence in perinatal mental health research. She also chaired the NICE Guidance on Antenatal and Postnatal Mental Health 2014 (CG192).

She works closely with the 3rd sector including when developing tools for people with lived experience and healthcare professionals – for example, preconception care tools commissioned by NHS England and a toolkit for mental health care professionals to identify and respond safely to domestic abuse being experienced or perpetrated by mental health service users (LARA-VP) Her research programmes have been funded by NIHR, MRC, UKRI and charitable foundations, and she was also funded by UKRI to develop a network for policy makers, practitioners and survivors of violence and abuse and mental health problems (VAMHN).

Research Interests 

• Maternal Mental Health 
• Violence and Health 
• Perinatal Mental Health 
• Gender differences in Mental Health

Teaching

Professor Howard taught and led on the Perinatal Mental Health module within the iBSc programme in Women’s and Children’s Health. She taught on the MRCPsych programme, DClinPsy programme, and several MSc programmes. She has also taught medical students and has supervised students carrying out research projects within their iBSc/MSc programmes.

Expertise and Public Engagement

Louise was Chair of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence Guideline Development Group (update) on Antenatal and Postnatal Mental Health (2014),and was a member of the NICE/SCIE and WHO guidance development groups on preventing and reducing domestic violence (2013) and a NICE Expert Adviser for the Centre for Clinical Practice

In 2014 she edited a commissioned series on perinatal mental health for the Lancet and in 2022 co-led a Lancet Psychiatry Commission on domestic violence and mental health. She has also authored chapters of CMO annual reports and was appointed National Clinical Advisor NHSE Improving Access and Waiting Times Perinatal Programme 2015-2016. She was a member of the Department of Health and Social Care Women’s Mental Health Taskforce 2017 – 2018

Policy engagement has included membership of the Perinatal Mental Health Project Steering Group Public Health England, NHS England & NHS Improvement Domestic Abuse and Violence Expert Clinical Reference Group, NHSE CRG Clinical Outcomes group, NHSE CRG Research Priorities Group, and Advisory Group for Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology’s National Maternity and Perinatal Audit 2022. She has been a member of several Editorial Boards including: Lancet Psychiatry; Archives of Women’s Mental Health; British Journal of Psychiatry, BJPsych Open; Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences (EPS).