1st Edition

The Impact of the Environment on Psychiatric Disorder

Edited By Hugh Freeman, Stephen Stansfeld Copyright 2008
    340 Pages
    by Routledge

    340 Pages
    by Routledge

    The Impact of the Environment on Psychiatric Disorder explores the relationship between the environment and mental health, and suggests that environmental factors can play a role in the causation of psychiatric illness.

    Hugh Freeman and Stephen Stansfeld bring together experts from the field to discuss a range of physical and social environmental settings that are linked to psychiatric disorders. International contributors discuss topics including:

    • psychosocial processes linking the environment and mental health
    • gene–environment interactions
    • urban–rural differences
    • social support
    • migration
    • how noise affects psychiatric disorders.

    The book closes with a discussion of how disasters such as global warming and terrorism can affect mental health, and highlights the risks and protective factors for psychiatric disorders following such events.

    The Impact of the Environment on Psychiatric Disorder illuminates the wide range of ways in which it is possible for the environment to influence mental health. It will appeal to both academics and professionals, and will interest anyone concerned with connections between the environment and mental health.

    Freeman, Stansfeld, Introduction. Tsuang, Stone, Johnston, Gene-environment Interactions in Mental Disorders: A Current View. Curtis, Geographical Perspectives on Psychiatric Disorder. Stansfeld, Weich, Clark, Boydell, Freeman, Urban–rural Differences, Socioeconomic Status and Psychiatric Disorder. Evans, Lepore, Psychosocial Processes Linking the Environment and Mental Health. Brugha, Stansfeld, Freeman, Social Support, Environment and Psychiatric Disorder. Bhui, Migration and Mental Health. Freeman, Housing and Mental Health. Stansfeld, Clark, Noise and Psychiatric Disorder. McGrath, Parker, Seasonality and Mental Health: Mood Disorders, Suicide and Schizophrenia. McFarlane, Psychiatric Morbidity Following Disasters: Epidemiology, Risk and Protective Factors.

    Biography

    Hugh Freeman is Honorary Visiting Fellow, Green College, Oxford. He is also Honorary Professor at the University of Salford, and was formerly Editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry.

    Stephen Stansfeld is Professor of Psychiatry at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of London.

    "Freeman and Stansfeld have produced an excellent, comprehensive and concise introduction to environmental research in psychiatry. Equally, the book's clarity of thinking will serve as a useful reference within the field. Finally, it provides a timely reminder that a new generation of studies will be required; directly capapble of elucidating the complex, life course associations between genes, individuals and their environments, if we are to further our understanding of psychiatric disorders." - James Kirkbride, British Journal of Psychiatry, Feb 2009