Prof James B Kirkbride

Racial discrimination may increase psychosis risk Being racially or ethnically discriminated against may increase the risk of later developing psychotic symptoms, finds a major review of international evidence led by UCL researchers.

Being racially or ethnically discriminated against may increase the risk of later developing psychotic symptoms, finds a major review of international evidence led by @uclpsychiatry.bsky.social researchers.
www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/se...
@kirkbride.bsky.social

Racial discrimination may increase psychosis risk Being racially or ethnically discriminated against may increase the risk of later developing psychotic symptoms, finds a major review of international evidence led by UCL researchers.

Colleagues from @uclpsychiatry.bsky.social found consistent evidence from numerous studies that racial and ethnic discrimination appears to contribute to the development of psychosis.

Read: ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/se...

@uclbrainscience.bsky.social @kirkbride.bsky.social @kingsioppn.bsky.social

Great to give the closing state-of-the-art session at the European Psychiatric Association annual conference in Madrid yesterday on social determinants of mental health.

Thanks to President, Prof Andrea Fiorillo, for invite to talk on this important issue.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Wonderful collaboration led by leading academics in mental health research in Peru, Colombia & Argentina, directed by Stefan Priebe & co at QMUL, funded via MRC.

Longitudinal results of two year follow-up to follow.

Mental Distress Among Youths in Low-Income Urban Areas in South America - PubMed In this case-control study, female gender, stressful life events, substance use, arts activities, and social media engagement were associated with greater odds of depression and anxiety, while sport a...

Great to see our main baseline paper from ¡Ola! study out, exploring #SDoH correlates of #CMD in young people living in low income parts of 3 cities in South America

Cases report more SLEs, social media & sedative use than controls, less physical activity

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40042842/

Graduate Open Events: Intro to the Division of Psychiatry and MSc Mental Health Sciences Attend our upcoming virtual open day for Introduction to the Division of Psychiatry and the MSc Clinical Health Sciences/ MSc Mental Health Sciences Research to find out more about the programmes and ...

Thinking of advancing your knowledge & skills in mental health research? Come to our graduate open evening on 19 March, and find out more about our outstanding MSc courses in mental health research in @uclpsychiatry.bsky.social at @ucl.ac.uk.

www.ucl.ac.uk/psychiatry/e...

The OG.

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

New 3.5yr PhD opportunity at UCL with @equalise.bsky.social supervised by myself, @yvonne-kelly.bsky.social, @baowenxue.bsky.social & @profkatsmith.bsky.social on inequalities in pathways to employment in young people. Closes 25th Feb
www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Good to know Aloe. Thanks.

Population Mental Health looking for people to join Community Insights Panel Recruitment is now open for the Population Mental Health Community Insights Panel.

In our @ukri.org @phiuk.bsky.social Population Mental Health consortium, we're hoping to change that by recruiting a Community Insights Panel to help us set the direction for community mental health research & practice in the UK.

Interested? Find out more here: www.kcl.ac.uk/news/populat...

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Population mental health has, until recently, been a rarefied concern in medicine, public health and academia, with genuine dialogue, engagement & co-production in this space with communities & those with lived experience of mental health difficulties rarer still.

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Deadline to come work with us on this national public mental health data science role rapidly approaching! Looking for a strong quant researcher with psychiatric epidemiology skills.

Only 7 days until we launch the Atlas of Longitudinal Datasets! The launch will include a presentation, live demonstration, & panel discussion with multi-sector participants, the #PALMteam, lived experience advisors, & more. Sign up here-> www.landscaping-longitudinal-research.com/launch

Finally, congratulations to my @uclpsychiatry.bsky.social PhD student Georgie Hudson who led this work for the team, and who expertly thought about salient confounders, missing data (MICE) and other issues to produce this work so professionally.

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Data taken from OLA study, collab led by @qmulpsychiatry.bsky.social & impossible w/o relentless research activity by colleagues in Peru (Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia), Colombia (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Hospital Uni. San Ignacio) & Argentina (University of Buenos Aires).

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That said, this work isn't causal, and was taken from baseline case-control data. We have followed cases for two further years, which should allow us to evaluate how coping affects mental health & recovery longitudinally.

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If causal, our work implies that interventions that provide young people with positive coping mechanisms in response to substantial social adversity may protect against common mental disorders.

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Interestingly, we found some consistent evidence (albeit only at a trend level) that the effect of stressful life events on risk of anxiety/depression was weaker for young people who employed positive coping strategies. Here, we are underpowered to be definitive, but it's a potential signal.

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We found that young people who met GAD/PHQ criteria for #anxiety / #depression were less likely than controls to use positive #coping strategies, and more likely to use negative coping strategies, such as avoidance.

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mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/28/1...

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#EpiSky #epidemiology #mentalhealth #youthmentalhealth #cyp #resilience

Rising rates of youth mental health problems are a global concern, but how use of coping mechanisms affects this is less clear, especially in Global South contexts.

We investigated this in a new study of young people in the most deprived parts of Bogota, Lima & Buenos Aires in South America.

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Screenshot of a Telegraph headline reading "Mental health culture has gone too far, says Mel Stride"

I've been working on the politics of mental health since 2008

This is the first year I've felt there's been serious political pushback against a consensus that growing recognition of mental health problems is a good thing

Here's why I think that's so significant... 🧵

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

Hello bsky. Good to be here.

I'm hiring!

Can't think of a better inaugural post than to share details of new 2-year research fellow post we're advertising for an outstanding epidemiogist to join my team to work on improving population mental health.

tinyurl.com/28mlykr9

#CausalSky #EpiSky

Other epi disciplines already have their lovely starter packs, so for establishing parity of esteem, here comes the psychiatric epidemiology starter pack 👇

go.bsky.app/ADVqVyp

Please nominate other people to grow our ranks ☺️

Great idea. I'd started one but this is far more comprehensive.