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Area and individual circumstances and mood disorder prevalence

Strangeways Research Laboratory and Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Correspondence: Dr Nicholas Wainwright, Strangeways Research Laboratory, Worts Causeway, Cambridge CB1 8RN, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1223 740171; fax: +44 (0)1223 740147; e-mail: nick.wainwright{at}srl.cam.ac.uk

Declaration of interest None. Funding detailed in Acknowledgements.

Background Associations have been demonstrated between contextual (area level) factors and a range of physical health outcomes, but their relationship with mental health outcomes is less well understood.

Aims To investigate the relative strength of association between individual and area-level demographic and socio-economic factors and mood disorder prevalence in the UK.

Method Cross-sectional data from 19 687 participants from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition in Norfolk.

Results Area deprivation was associated with current (12-month) mood disorders after adjusting for individual-level socio-economic status (OR for top v. bottom quartile of deprivation scores 1.29, 95% CI 1.1–1.5, P<0.001). However, this association was small relative to those observed for individual marital and employment status. Significant residual area-level variation in current mood disorders (representing 3.6% of total variation, P=0.04) was largely accounted for by individual-level factors.

Conclusions The magnitude of the association between socio-economic status and mood disorders is greater at the individual level than at the area level.

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