Understanding social and spatial inequalities in common mental health disorders

英国的一些常见精神健康障碍（如焦虑、抑郁、创伤后应激障碍）是欧洲最高的。四分之一的成年人每年都会遇到心理健康问题，六分之一的人每周都会遇到一个问题。心理健康状况不佳的人群并不均衡。性别、年龄组、种族和社会经济地位之间存在着广泛的不平等。各种因素之间复杂的相互作用意味着，心理健康的地理分布也不均衡，对心理健康的空间决定因素研究不足。提高我们对这些不平等背后原因的理解，对于制定有效的政策来解决心理健康不良问题至关重要。该博士项目将利用来自NHS数字（小区域药物分配记录）和CIPHA（二级保健相关记录）的电子健康记录来检查柴郡和默西塞德郡常见精神健康障碍的驱动因素。通过确定该地区哪些社区的常见精神健康障碍发病率较高（包括按类型），我们将评估社区社会经济剥夺在解释模式方面所起的作用。通过对这种关系进行建模，我们将把重点放在“残差”上，这些残差对应于剥夺不能解释常见精神健康障碍的领域。该项目将描述解释这些剩余社区的人群和地区类型（例如，服务的可达性，建筑环境的特征），以确定干预的机会。关键词：空间与社会不平等；地理空间健康；空间分析

The UK has some of Europe's highest level of common mental health disorders (e.g., anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder). 1 in 4 adults will experience a mental health problem each year, with 1 in 6 experiencing a problem weekly. Who experiences poor mental health is not evenly felt across the population. There are wide inequalities across sex, age group, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This complex interplay of factors means that the geography of mental health is also uneven, with the spatial determinants of mental health under-researched. Improving our understanding of the reasons behind these inequalities is paramount for designing effective policies for tackling poor mental health.This PhD project will utilise electronic health records from NHS Digital (small area medication dispensing records) and CIPHA (secondary care linked records) to examine the drivers of common mental health disorders across Cheshire and Merseyside. Through identifying which neighbourhoods across the region have higher incidence of common mental health disorders (including by type), we will assess the role that neighbourhood socioeconomic deprivation plays in explaining patterns. Through modelling this relationship, we will focus on the 'residuals' which correspond to areas where deprivation does not explain common mental health disorders. The project will characterise the types of people and areas (e.g., accessibility to services, features of built environment) that explain these residual neighbourhoods, to identify opportunities for intervention.Key words: spatial and social inequalities, geospatial health, spatial analysis, translational research