Gagné, T;
Henderson, C;
McMunn, A;
(2022)
Is the self-reporting of mental health problems sensitive to public stigma towards mental illness? A comparison of time trends across English regions (2009–19).
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
10.1007/s00127-022-02388-7.
(In press).
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Abstract
Purpose: The prevalence of mental health problems has rapidly increased over time. The extent to which this captures changes in self-reporting due to decreasing stigma is unclear. We explore this by comparing time trends in mental health and stigma-related indicators across English regions. Methods: We produced annual estimates of self-reported mental disorders (SRMDs) across waves of the Health Survey for England (2009–18, n = 78,226) and three stigma-related indicators (knowledge, attitudes, and intended behaviour) across waves of the Attitudes Towards Mental Illness survey (2009–19, n = 17,287). Differences in trends were tested across nine Government Office Regions using linear models, adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, marital status, and social class. Results: In 2009, SRMDs did not vary by region (p = 0.916), whereas stigma-related indicators did (p < 0.001), with London having the highest level of stigma and the North East having lowest level of stigma. Between 2009 and 2018, the prevalence of SRMDs increased from 4.3 to 9.1%. SRMDs increased and stigma-related indicators improved at different rates across regions over time (SRMDs p = 0.024; stigma-related indicators p < 0.001). London reported the lowest increase in SRMDs (+ 0.3 percentage point per year) yet among the largest improvements in attitudes and intended behaviour across regions. Conclusions: Improvements in attitudes towards mental illness did not mirror changes in self-reported mental health problems across English regions over the past decade. The findings do not support the argument that changes in public stigma, at least when defined at this regional scale, have been driving the increase in self-reported mental health indicators in recent years.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Is the self-reporting of mental health problems sensitive to public stigma towards mental illness? A comparison of time trends across English regions (2009–19) |
| Location: | Germany |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s00127-022-02388-7 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-022-02388-7 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | England, Health Survey for England, Mental health, Self-report, Stigma |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10162113 |
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