New project on entourage in healthy sports careers in high-performance sport
The R&D project HENAC - Healthy Environment throughout Athletic Careers is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2022-138242OB-I00). The project is directed by Drs. Yago Ramis Laloux and Miquel Torregrossa Álvarez, members of IRE-UAB.
Innovative project to address the health and well-being of athletes who develop their career towards, or in, high-performance sport.
Athletes’ mental health, far from referring to the presence or absence of mental illness, should be understood as the ability to develop towards their maximum potential and in a flexible and adaptive way to their environment.
The vulnerability of athletes to suffering from mental health problems has been associated with irrational expectations, both their own ones and from the environment in which they carry out their activity.
Guaranteeing the mental health of athletes requires an in-depth approach to the environments where sports performance is developed and a longitudinal perspective monitoring the evolution of well-being and mental health indicators throughout the different phases of sports development.
The athlete, in his or her journey towards high performance, has a central position in a structured environment (individuals and entities in both sports and non-sports institutions, and public or private environments) with different levels and areas of interaction (sports, private and academic-vocational). Their context plays an important role, since the objectives, structure and culture of the environment can vary for each athlete.
This project is proposed as a contextual (from the environments) and longitudinal (over time) approach to evaluate athletes who develop in (or towards) high-performance sport and can help prevent mental health problems and promote the well-being of athletes and their families, as well as sports science professionals. To ensure that the project includes all the diversity of careers, a specific objective focuses on the analysis of women's careers in sport.
Main objective: to analyse the role of environments in supporting the development of healthy athletic careers (towards or) in high-performance sports.
Specific objectives:
- Evaluation of the resources and needs of high-performance sport environments, both public and private, in supporting the careers of athletes.
- Longitudinal evaluation of the careers of athletes who have been trained in high-performance sport environments, both public and private.
- Longitudinal analysis of the role of the family environment in supporting the career of athletes.
- Longitudinal analysis of the phenomenon of professionalization in women's sports of athletes, coaches and referees.
Team project: Participated by 15 members: 11 PhD researchers from 10 universities and other research entities and 4 predoctoral researchers in training. In 2024, a fifth predoctoral researcher will be incorporated with a scholarship linked to the project. Researchers that are expert in the subject also collaborate in the project.
Research team:
- Yago Ramis Laloux, PhD (IP), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
- Miquel Torregrossa Álvarez, PhD (IP), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
- Elena Conde Pascual, PhD, San Antonio Catholic University of Murcia.
- Cristina López de Subijana, PhD, Polytechnic University of Madrid.
- Susana Reguela Saez, PhD, Sant Cugat High Performance Center.
- Carme Viladrich Segués, PhD, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Work team:
- María Dolores González, PhD, Universidade da Coruña.
- José María López-Chamorro, PhD, University of Almería.
- Javier Monforte Alarcón, J., PhD, University of Valencia.
- Juan Pons Bauzà, PhD, University of the Balearic Islands.
- Brett Smith, PhD, University of Durham.
- Marta Borrueco, PhD, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
- Anna Jordana, PhD, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
- José T. Mejías, UAB trainee research staff.
- Marina Garcia, UAB trainee research staff.
- Rocío Zamora, UAB trainee research staff.
- Maximiliano Devoto, UAB trainee research staff.
The project continues the studies promoted by or in which the UAB Sports Psychology Research Group (GEPE-UAB) has participated in recent years: RTI2018-095468-B-I00; 557281-EPP-2014-1-FR-SPO-SCP; 579782-EPP-1-2016-2-BE-SPO-SCP; 590476-EPP-1-2017-1-UK-SPO-SCP; 622178-EPP-1-2020-1-BE-SPO-SCP; AORGP2021.