This infographic illustrates that people with severe mental health problems face increased risk of physical health problems, including diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease.
Premature mortality: the facts
- One in three people of the 100,000 with ‘avoidable deaths’ every year have a mental illness. Each Clinical Commissioning Group area loses on average 50 lives a year.[1][2]
- People with mental ill health 2-4 times as likely to die prematurely.[3][4]
- People with severe mental health problems die earlier than others: average life expectancy is reduced by 15 years in women and 20 years in men (from Nordic studies), and there is evidence that this is getting worse.[5]
- People who are homeless, many of whom have become so because of severe mental health and substance abuse problems, die 40 years early.[6]
Compared with the general population, people with severe mental illness have:
- 4.1 times the overall risk of dying prematurely than the general population aged under 50
- 2 times the risk of diabetes [7]
- 2-3 times the risk of hypertension.
- 3 times the risk of dying from coronary heart disease. [8]
- Gastrointestinal disease is raised at least four times and most of that are liver issues to do with alcohol or other hepatitis illnesses.
- Cardiovascular disease is two and half times more.
- 10-fold increase in deaths from respiratory disease for people with schizophrenia.[9]
References
[1] Royal College of Psychiatrists (2010) No health without public mental health: the case for action. London: Royal College of Psychiatrists. https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Position%20Statement%204%20website.pdf
[2] Department of Health (2013) Living Well for Longer: a call to action to reduce avoidable premature mortality. London: Department of Health. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/181103/Living_well_for_longer.pdf
[3] Newman SC, Bland RC. (1991) Mortality in a cohort of patients with schizophrenia: a record linkage study. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 1991; 36(4): 239-45.
[4] Brown S, Kim M, Mitchell C, Inskip H. (2010) Twenty-five year mortality of a community cohort with schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry. 2010; 196: 116-21.
[5] Lawrence D, Hancock KJ, Kisely S. (2013) The gap in life expectancy from preventable physical illness in psychiatric patients in Western Australia: retrospective analysis of population based registers. British Medical Journal. 2013; 346: f2539.
[6] Nordentoft M, Wandall-Holm N. (2003) 10 year follow up study of mortality among users of hostels for homeless people in Copenhagen. British Medical Journal 2003; 327(7406): 81.
[7] Royal College of Psychiatrists (2013) Whole person care: from rhetoric to reality. Achieving parity between mental and physical health. London: Royal College of Psychiatrists. https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/files/pdfversion/OP88xx.pdf
[8] Osborn DP, Nazareth I, King MB. (2007) Physical activity, dietary habits and Coronary Heart Disease risk factor knowledge amongst people with severe mental illness: a cross sectional comparative study in primary care. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. 2007; 42(10): 787-93.
[9] Faculty of Public Health (2008) Mental health and smoking: a position statement. London: Faculty of Public Health. https://www.fph.org.uk/uploads/ps_mental_health_and_smoking.pdf