mojatu .com
30 Health & Food
TIME TO CHANGE NOTTINGHAM HUB
Tackling stigma, raising awareness and uniting communities
to change the way our city approaches mental health.
By Micha Skye – Time to change champion
going on.
It may come as a surprise to some, but we all have
mental health. Sometimes we may refer to it as
emotional health, but diagnosis or not we all have it
and the impact of not looking after it can be drastic.
As a city it’s time we not only embraced our mental
health and caring for it as we do our physical but
also tackled some of the challenges we as a city
amongst our communities face, together. But what
does mental health in our city look like?
There are approximately 786,000 people living within
the Nottinghamshire area. As with physical health
there are considerable variations in mental health
across the city. Deprivation links historically with both
ill physical and mental health and Nottingham City is
one of the ten most deprived districts in the country
(Nottingham Insight 2016). Nottingham has high
levels of many of the risk factors that can contribute
to poor mental wellbeing. Equally our Nottingham
City CCG areas have significantly higher levels of long-
term mental health problems than that of the national
levels. The majority of CCG areas also report levels of
depression that are above the national average and
this is of course includes only those that feel they can
ask for help. Many still slip through the statistics too
ashamed to reach out for help and admit what is truly
• In the most recent three year period reported,
85 deaths in Nottingham City were recorded as
suicide, over 78% of whom were men. Men are in
fact three times more likely than women take their
own life with rates highest in middle age. Suicide
also increases in most deprived communities
experiencing far higher rates.
• Black men are 3 times more likely to be represented
on a psychiatric ward and up to six times more
likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act.
In fact the DRC (2006) concluded that people from
black communities were more likely than others to
bypass primary care and be admitted straight to a
psychiatric hospital.
• British white women were the least likely to have a
common mental health problem (15.6%), followed
by white British women (20.9%) and black and
black British women (29.3%)
• Asylum seekers and refugees are more likely to
experience poor mental health than anyone else in
the local population (estimated over 5 times more
likely to struggle)
• 10% of children ( ages 5-16 years) have a
diagnosable mental health condition, however
70% of them have not had appropriate
intervention.
These statistics and facts cannot continue to be heard
but not addressed
by the people it
directly effects- us
the
community.
We know there are
variations in help
seeking behaviour,
cultural
barriers,
language
barriers,
discrimination which
all impact access but
the answers as to why
this is happening
and how it can be
changed are unclear.
What is clear however