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Effects of mental disorders on the wellbeing and prosperity of family members and friends

Project description

A closer look at family relationships and mental illness

When one member of a family is diagnosed with a mental illness, the entire family struggles to cope. Mental illness often has a ‘ripple effect’ on families and friends. The EU-funded MENTALNET project will explore how one family member’s mental illness affects the well-being and prosperity of the other members, including parents and siblings, as well as partners in later adulthood. The research will investigate the wider social impact of mental illness across the life course, also estimating the longevity of these wider harmful influences. To provide answers, the project will focus on interlinked nationwide Finnish registers that contain rich individual-level information for the entire Finnish population collected over more than three decades.

Objective

Mental disorders have an enduring impact on individuals wellbeing and economic prosperity. Although it is often assumed that these effects extend to the wellbeing of family members and friends as well, comprehensive large-scale direct investigations have rarely been conducted and it remains unclear how enduring these influences are. This project addresses this fundamental gap in our understanding and substantially extends prior knowledge in two crucial ways. First, I will estimate how much a person?s mental disorder affects the wellbeing and prosperity of family members, including parents and siblings. Second, I study whether these effects extend to partners in later adulthood. Third, I will assess the broader social impact of mental illness across the life course, also estimating the longevity of these wider harmful influences. My research team and I will use several interlinked nationwide Finnish registers to answer these questions. The linked datasets contain rich individual-level information for over three decades for the whole Finnish population, including complete details of healthcare utilization and prescription medication prescribing for approximately 5 million persons over a 20-year observation period. The main advantage of these nationwide registers is that they are truly population-based and free of the biases that are common in research surveys. My team will use state-of-the-art research designs and statistical methods to identify potential causal links. MENTALNET will deliver cutting-edge knowledge on how mental disorders coalesce in social networks, which can potentially help to reduce the societal impact of mental disorders.

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Topic(s)

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HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2021-STG

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Host institution

HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 499 494,00
Address
FABIANINKATU 33
00014 HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Finland

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 499 494,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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