Mental health care and the benefits system: linked data provides opportunities for new research

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Becky Appleton explores the potential of new data linkage opportunities for understanding the intersection between mental health service use and receipt of benefits in a South London service user population.

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Social security? Evidence about benefits and mental health

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Andy Bell summarises a collection of recent academic research papers that have sought to understand the impact of a range of changes to the UK benefits system on people’s mental health.

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Mental health and benefits insecurity

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Consultant psychiatrist Dr Dieneke Hubbeling critically analyses a recent study looking at mental health benefits insecurity, and concludes that it is important for clinicians to realise that there is probably no such thing as benefits security.

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Universal Credit increases mental health problems, but not employment

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Alan Simpson summarises a recent longitudinal study that explores the impact that UK welfare reform, specifically Universal Credit, has had on the mental health of people across England, Scotland and Wales.

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Does co-locating welfare advice services improve mental health?

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Katie Evans from Money and Mental Health considers a recent study looking at the impact of co-located welfare advice in healthcare settings, which found significant improvements in financial outcomes, but less convincing results in terms of health benefits.

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Childhood traumatic brain injuries predict risk of poor long-term outcomes

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Eleanor Kennedy reports on a nationwide Swedish cohort study, which finds that traumatic brain injury consistently predicted later risk of premature mortality, psychiatric inpatient admission, psychiatric outpatient visits, disability pension, welfare recipiency and low educational attainment.

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A social model for understanding madness and distress

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Alison Faulkner on a new Shaping Our Lives report, which addresses service user and survivor views about ways of understanding madness and distress, but in particular about the potential of a social model.

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Work Capability Assessments linked with increase in suicides

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Ian Cummins considers the findings of a recent longitudinal study that measures the impact that welfare reform and disability assessments have had on mental illness and rates of suicide.

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‘Beat the cheat’: disability welfare benefits and newspaper reporting

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Gerry Bennison offers food for thought in his blog on research into how disability welfare has been characterised in popular UK tabloid articles.

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Shirkers and scroungers: Is there a link between mental health discrimination and welfare reform?

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In her first Social Care Elf blog, Sarah Carr looks at an evaluation of the Time to Change anti-stigma campaign and discovers some new findings on discrimination against those living with mental health problems.

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