A RIGHT TO HEALTH
“…a scandal of premature mortality that contravenes
international conventions for the right to health” (Thornicroft 2011).
People experiencing a severe mental illness (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression) can expect:
⇒ To die on average 15-20 years earlier than their peers
⇒ 75% of premature deaths are from physical health’s ‘usual suspects’ of cardiovascular and pulmonary disorders, diabetes, cancer and infections…
⇒ Cardiovascular disease (CVD is the single largest cause of a widening mortality gap, and far commoner than suicide.
Yet disorders like CVD and diabetes are predictable and potentially preventable.
Psychosis typically emerges in late adolescence to early twenties, causing a young and vulnerable population to become exposed to a toxic interaction between poor mental health, consequential unhealthy lifestyles, obesogenic and diabetogenic antipsychotic treatments, and social disadvantage that includes often inequitable healthcare.
This can provoke early, rapid escalation in cardiometabolic risk, putting people with psychosis on a path towards poor future health at a much earlier age than the general population. Hence Early Intervention in Psychosis needs to Keep the Body in Mind (Shiers, Jones, Field BJGP 2009)
A HEALTH INEQUALITY
DAVID SHIERS AND TIM KENDALL’S LSE BLOG:
Weight gain, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and dreampharmaceuticals buy levitra online premature death should not be inevitable consequences of psychosis and its treatments.
TACKLING THIS HEALTH INEQUALITY
iphYs is an international collaboration that has emerged to challenge this health inequality. Arising in 2010 at the International Early Psychosis Association conference in Amsterdam, iphYs supports international collaborations that include the Don’t Just Screen, Intervene Resource (in the UK known as the NICE Endorsed Lester UK adaptation) and the HeAL international consensus statement
KEEP THE BODY IN MIND
RIGHT FROM THE START!
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AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION IS WORTH A POUND OF CURE: The early phase of psychosis offers a unique opportunity to prevent cardiovascular and metabolic risks becoming established and avoid poor physical health ‘downstream’
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