Alice Varley

Understanding Social and Spatial Inequalities in Common Mental Health Disorders

Name: Alice Varley
Primary Supervisor: Dr Carmen Cabrera
Year: 2
Discipline: Geography
Presentation type: Poster
Project Title: Understanding Social and Spatial Inequalities in Common Mental Health Disorders  

Abstract:

The NHS has made a commitment to improving access to mental health services, in turn improving mental health inequalities. To better tailor services to meet the needs of underserved populations, it is crucial to first understand how accessible these services for different residents. This study focuses on the city of Liverpool, which has an above-average rate of depression, indicating that there is unmet mental health need.  This study aims to investigate both the spatial accessibility of treatment locations and the individual social barriers which impact access to services, combining these two aspects to create a composite accessibility score. It does so by using a floating catchment area method for the spatial element and factor analysis for the individual barriers.  This research is expected to yield valuable results presenting an opportunity to reveal how the NHS can increase the uptake of mental health services by addressing different facets of inaccessibility of mental health treatment.