Yesterday we said goodbye to our friend and colleague, Ulla Raisanen, who has left the Health Experiences Research Group (HERG) after 8 years, having reached more than 500,000 young people through her work. HERG are responsible for the research on healthtalk.org and Ulla is the researcher behind the interviews, analysis and the written text for our young people’s sections on depression & low mood, eating disorders (both funded by Comic Relief) and epilepsy.

As a goodbye gift we created this infographic showing the impact that Ulla’s contribution has had. We calculated that over half a million young people have visited the sections of the website that she worked on and over 125 hours of video are watched on those sections each month.

According to our visitor survey 80% of young people feel better informed by the information on our website and 74% think we provide information that is better than they received from elsewhere. Recent feedback from Jen about Ulla’s ‘depression and low mood’ section said ‘It’s such a good website and has talked about things I’ve experienced that I’ve never, ever seen written anywhere else.’

Our survey also suggests that 70% of young people feel less alone in what they are going through having read the information provided on healthtalk.org. After coming across our ‘depression and low mood‘ section last year, Mollie told us ‘nowI know that I am not alone with my illness and the way it makes me feel. Thank you so much, this information saved my life.’

What a fantastic legacy Ulla has left and she will continue helping young people long after she’s left for pastures new. Thank you so much Ulla!

Read Ulla’s impact report.