How do resilient communities protect people with severe mental illnesses from death? | C4C

Prior research suggests that life expectancy is lower in people diagnosed with severe mental illnesses than in the general population, mostly due to preventable physical health conditions. The project aims to investigate the environmental and social factors may influence life expectancy rates within this population. People diagnosed with severe mental illnesses (SMI) experience a 10-20 year reduction in life expectancy compared to the general population – this excess risk of mortality has been associated mostly to preventable physical causes (e.g. cardiovascular disease). Prior studies have also found variation in mortality rates between different geographical areas. Historically, studies investigating factors associated to premature mortality in the SMI population tend to focus on individual-level factors (e.g. diet, substance misuse). However, there has been limited research on the link between neighbourhood-level factors (e.g. access to green spaces, neighbourhood population density) and mortality in this population despite evidence of this association within studies conducted with samples without SMI. Furthermore, the methodology used by these studies were solely quantitative which precludes in-depth analysis of possible underlying mechanisms connecting health outcomes and neighbourhood-level factors in the SMI population. Hence the current project will conduct qualitative interviews to develop understanding of the link between neighbourhood-level factors and premature mortality in SMI. The qualitative interviews will be conducted with people with SMI and professionals from the health, social care and charitable sectors to understand their perspectives on the neighbourhood-level factors that influence the health of people with SMI. The data generated from the interviews will be triangulated with data from another quantitative dataset to understand the underlying mechanisms that link the neighbourhood-level factors and mortality in people with SMI.