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Methods

MH-COST is structured into 3 key phases:

Methods

The MH-COST Study

1

Identifying Stressors and Survey Development

2

Recruitment, Survey Administration and Analysis

3

Arts-Based Workshops and Public Engagement

Our Research Approach

MH-COST runs from October 2025 onwards and our research is organised into three phases.

Phase 1

Identifying Stressors and Survey Development

Phase 1 focuses on identifying key stressors related to statelessness and developing a culturally grounded mental health survey.

Here we are gathering existing knowledge about mental health and structural exclusion within the Pakistani Bengali community through:

An in-depth exploration of available reports on mental health on a general population Pakistan.

  1. A review of life story interview data with 30 Pakistani Bengali young people from the Partition of Identity Project specifically examining data on health and wellbeing.
  2. Analysis of anonymised clinical case summaries and outreach findings collected by Imkaan’s clinical team over the past 5 years.
  3. Semi-structured interviews with key health actors including the clinical lead at Imkaan and advisory committee members, to pinpoint key stressors and cultural expressions of mental health.

Phase 2

Recruitment, Survey Administration and Analysis

In phase 2, we will recruit and conduct our survey with:

  • Our study group of 450 stateless Pakistani Bengali young people (aged 16–25) from three Karachi localities with high numbers of Pakistani Bengalis.
  • A comparison group of 450 Pakistani adolescents and young adults (aged 16–25) from the same three locations who are not impacted by statelessness.

Our survey will be administered digitally in Urdu via tablets by trained community researchers.

Phase 3

Arts-Based Workshops and Public Engagement
This phase centres youth voices and supports new narratives around mental health and statelessness in Pakistan.
 
In Phase 3, we will run arts-based workshops with a subgroup of our participants. These will include poetry workshops and drama and storytelling workshops led in collaboration with artists and community facilitators. Insights from this phase will contribute to Co-produced mental health resources, A youth-led awareness campaign, public engagement outputs and our final project dissemination events
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