Geographies of Mental Health Inequalities in the UK: Validation of approaches to estimate changing levels of need in local areas.

In England approximately one person in six has mental health problems and this proportion has been growing (McManus et al, 2016). Many things lead to someone having poor mental health but where they live can have a significant impact (Riva and Smith, 2012). Understanding local conditions that lead to poor mental health is important in planning services, but the lack of data at smaller spatial scales can make this difficult.

This research proposes using advanced quantitative methods (AQM), including longitudinal application of small-area estimation (SAE) to determine the impact of local environments on mental health outcomes in the UK. SAE has been used extensively to estimate physical health outcomes (smoking, obesity) but less often in mental health and only rarely in a longitudinal approach that estimates change over time.

Recent developments in SAE have helped researchers find more accurate ways to build local area estimates and a critical part of this proposal is to test and validate the methods and datasets used in this process to identify the most accurate and reliable models. The validation will make use of available data on mental health, held locally in Hampshire, and then extend the models to include all of England. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal models will be assessed, by accessing existing health surveys such as Health Survey for England and Understanding Society.