bulletin International Federation of Psychiatric Epidemiology Volume 8(2) December 2010

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1 bulletin International Federation of Psychiatric Epidemiology Volume 8(2) December 2010 Global recession and mental health: Psychiatric illness, Violence and Substance Abuse in Populations under Stress: Taiwan 2011 Glynn Harrison, President Dear Colleague Having attempted to dip our toes into less familiar territory of happiness and well-being at the last Congress, we are back on more familiar territory at our next Congress- the determinants and prevention of ill-being. We have rather swung to the other extreme with our chilling theme of psychiatric illness, violence and populations under stress. We have an excellent line up of experts. Coming from diverse backgrounds themselves, our plenary speakers from Asia, the US, Canada and Europe will share their experiences of adversity. Different approaches to the impact of the economic recession are going to be especially interesting- as I indicated in the last bulletin the relationship between adversity and health is complex, rather like the relationship between economic prosperity and happiness. All is not what it seems. And of course the situation has become more complicated since we planned the Congress in that the global recession hasn t been quite as global as we thought. It appears that some parts of the world may have escaped relatively unscathed, but it is still early days for a final assessment of these events and we shall be able to reflect further on our different experiences in Taiwan. I am looking forward to greeting you at Taiwan. In the early days of planning we were concerned that the theme of the congress would, paradoxically, work against its success by inhibiting resources for travel. But Taiwan has a superb range of facilities and accommodation across all cost levels, allowing us to greet a growing number of delegates from Asia, as well as many old friends from the US and Europe. We have had hundreds of abstracts that have allowed us to organise some excellent parallel-sessions in addition to the plenary events. It is going to be an outstanding Congress. We owe a debt of gratitude to the excellent organising team, led by Professor Mian Yoon Chong, and to Prof Andrew Cheng for his local leadership of the academic programme. I look forward to seeing you there, Glynn Harrison President IFPE

2 ARE YOU INTERESTED IN HOSTING AN IFPE CONGRESS? We are looking forward to welcoming you to the Congress planned for 2013/14, but where in the world will it be? Your executive team are busy at the moment facilitating bids and discussions are in progress. But we want to encourage anybody interested in hosting a Congress to get in touch. Becoming a local host is an outstanding opportunity for IFPE members to progress the cause of psychiatric epidemiology internationally and also locally. Over the last few years we have been honoured to be associated with fine academic departments in Edmonton, Bristol, Gothenburg, Vienna and Taiwan. Why not consider making your academic department the host for our next Congress? If you are interested please your president at g.harrison@bristol.ac.uk Congress venue: The Splendor Kaohsiung XIII IFPE International Congress IFPE: 30 MARCH 2 APRIL, 2011, KAOSHING, TAIWAN Preparation for the 13th International Congress of IFPE to be held in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from March 30-April 2, 2011, is on schedule. It is organized by Professor Mian-Yoon Chong who is the Vice-Superintendent of Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (KCGMH) and also the Secretary General of IFPE. The Congress is also co-sponsored by KCGMH and the Taiwanese Society of Psychiatry. The preliminary programme is almost ready and will be put on the web of the congress shortly. It includes a workshop (theme on developing mental health program for the developing country), 6 Plenary Sessions (17 speakers), 2 (Tsung-Yi Lin and John Wing) Memorial Lectures, parallel oral symposia (160 papers), and the poster presentations with 165 abstracts. We have granted 20 travel fellowships to researchers whose abstracts were judged to be of excellent quality by the Scientific Programme Committee. IFPE will also offer a number of awards for the best poster 2

3 presenters at the Congress. Please check with the congress web for the latest information and registration. It is estimated that about 500 participants from 50 countries will attend the Congress. The definite figure will be confirmed after the expiration of the final date of registration. With our negotiations, the local hotels have provided a special discounted rate for our IFPE guests who reserve early. The room of a 5-star hotel for example, has been reduced to about US$ a night, which also includes a breakfast and free internet service! The rates are even lower in some hotels of other grades. The price is rather cheap as compared to most major cities of the world. Kaohsiung is situated at the south of Taiwan and has a pleasant climate in March-April of C. Like its weather, Kaohsiung is well-known for the hospitality and food. There are direct flights from major Asian cities to Kaohsiung, but for most travelers from European countries, it is better to make your connecting flight via Hong Kong. Flights from Hong Kong to Kaohsiung are frequent and the flying time takes only 70 minutes. If you wish to visit Taipei after the Congress, you can arrange with your travel agent of your departure from Taipei CKS International Airport instead of Kaohsiung International Airport. From Kaohsiung to Taipei, it takes only 90 minutes with the high speed rail. Perhaps you may wish to visit the 2010 World Flora Expo (until the end of April 2011) or the National Palace Museum in Taipei that has the largest collections of ancient Chinese artefacts and artworks in the world. The success of the IFPE Congress depends on your participation, and we are looking forward to meeting you in Professor Mian-Yoon Chong, Secretary General Summary of the General Assembly April 17, 2009 The last General Assembly meeting was held in Vienna Austria while we had the pleasure of attending the 12th International Congress hosted by Professor Johannes Wanacata and his team. This brief synopsis of the minutes is intended to refresh your memory concerning the main matters of business that took place. One important function of the Executive is to confirm new members into the Federation. In 2009, we had the pleasure of welcoming 23 new individual members, 33 associate members, and one corporate member the Network for Psychiatric Epidemiology in Norway. This places our membership, at the end of 2009, as 86 individual members, 7 lapsed members, 33 associate members, and 8 corporate members. We also had the pleasure of confirming John Cooper as an Honorary Member in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the field of psychiatric epidemiology and to our Federation. The Associate Member status is intended to bring students and young researchers into the IFPE fold. The Executive agreed that Associate members should not be liable for any membership/subscription fee and voted unanimously to change the statutes (Article 5) to reflect this decision. We hope that this will lend further impetus to young researchers to join our Federation. We had a number of changes in our leadership through normal rotations and welcomed a new executive and committee members to our roster, which can be identified from our web site. The new executive has been working hard to bring together the next international congress and is looking forward to seeing you at the next general assembly. Heather Stuart (Canada), Vice-President 3

4 Challenges in psychiatric epidemiology: nonparticipation of persons with psychiatric disorders in population-based health studies The declining participation rates in populationbased health studies over the past 30 years has led to concerns that systematic differences between participants and nonparticipants will bias the results from such studies and decrease the validity and generalizability. Little is known about the health status of nonparticipants, although in the field of psychiatric epidemiology there has been a growing suspicion that persons with psychiatric disorders are less likely to participate in health studies. Due to methodological challenges it has been difficult to assess whether this is true. Sociodemographic factors like age, gender, education, and employment status are usually easier to retrieve from secondary information than health, and those studies which have tried to assess health status among nonparticipants have often employed short surveys or interviews of a subgroup of nonparticipants, an approach which is also vulnerable to nonparticipation by the exact same individuals. In a recent study from Norway, individual information on participation status from a large population-based health study on persons in their forties (n=29,440) was linked with official registries over awarded or future disability pensions, including diagnostic information 1. The use of disability pension registries has several advantages compared with hospital registries or mortality registries, as they give information on disorders and diseases that are prevalent in the population and lead to functional loss and disability, but are not necessarily severe enough to lead to hospitalization or death. Although the rate of disability pension award was almost twice as high among nonparticipants compared to participants, the results indicated that the rate of nonparticipation was not equivalent across health problems. While persons who had a disability pension awarded for a musculoskeletal disorder had a fairly representative participation rate, persons with a psychiatric disorder had a three-fold risk of nonparticipation. In particular, persons diagnosed with alcohol or drug use, psychosis and schizophrenia, or personality disorders were seriously underrepresented among the participants. This underrepresentation threatens prevalence and incidence rates based on population based studies, but the study concluded that nonparticipation bias did not seem to affect analytical epidemiology to the same degree. Recruitment of persons with a psychiatric disorder is a challenge, and increased recruitment efforts in population-based health studies may paradoxically make the sample look healthier, as reminders and appeals to participate in health studies most likely will attract persons with fairly good health, and not those with psychiatric disorders, especially when symptoms of anxiety and social avoidance are present. The recommendation from the Norwegian study was to include other sources like case-registries for sickness absence, disability pension, hospital records and mortality in incidence and prevalence studies of psychiatric disorders. In settings where such information is not available, knowledge from studies of nonparticipants should be taken into consideration when interpreting the results. 1 Knudsen AK, Hotopf M, Skogen JC, Øverland S, Mykletun A. The Health Status of Nonparticipants in a Population-based Health Study: The Hordaland Health Study. Am J Epid. 2010;172(11): Ann Kristin Knudsen University of Bergen, Norway 4

5 Election for Committee Members Elections of the next Committee and the Executive members will begin in January We are now calling for the registration of candidates. According to our Statue, persons proposed for election to the Committee must be individual members of IFPE, and to be eligible must have paid their subscription fees in full. Proposals for election should be made in writing to the president. Professor Mian-Yoon Chong, Secretary General Membership of IFPE: Become a Member or renew your membership Our Association welcomes any researcher in mental health epidemiology who holds a clinical or non-clinical faculty position and has publications within the field to apply for Individual Membership. Since IFPE has a major goal to inspire and develop young scientists, persons who are still students/trainees or do not have sufficient research experience in this field, may apply for an Associate Membership. In due course, Associate Members may be approved for full membership. We also have a Corporate Membership for any association, society or other constituted body whose aims are in conformity with psychiatric epidemiology. To become an Individual Member, Associate Member or to renew your membership, simply contact directly our President of the Federation, Professor Glynn Harrison via g.harrisonifpe@blueyonder.co.uk or G.Harrison@bristol.ac.uk Membership fee Annual current dues are as follows: For Individual Members from highincome countries, 40 Euros per year (100 Euros for 3 years paid in advance). For those from low-income countries, 15 Euros per year (40 Euros for 3 years paid in advance). For Associate Member there are no membership fees. Benefits of becoming a member Besides being a part of a stimulating professional, scientific, and interdisciplinary association with a clear mission to facilitate research and growth within psychiatric epidemiology, benefits of becoming a member include a reduced registration fee at our meetings, and the right to vote. How to pay If you have registered for the conference in Taiwan 2011, the easiest way to pay is to add the membership fee in the separate tick-box you find at the registration sheet. If you prefer to pay it separately, you can use our Vienna account. The name of the IFPE account in Austria is: 'Dr. Johannes Wancata - i.g.' (International Bank Account Number AT ) at the following bank 'Erste Bank der Oesterreichischen Sparkassen AG' (Bank Identifier Code GIBAATWW). Within the Euro area no fees have to be paid. Please assure that your bank mentions your name. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me. Contact Information Christina M Hultman (treasurer) Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Karolinska Institutet Box Stockholm Tel:

6 Calendar of Events Kaohsiung, Taiwan March 30 April 2, 2011 International Federation of Psychiatric Epidemiology 2011: Mental Health and Global Recession: Psychiatric Illness, Violence and Substance Abuse in Populations under Stress, the 13 th International Congress of IFPE More information: Copenhagen, Denmark November 10-12, 2011 European Public Health Association, the 4 th joint European Conference on Public Health Website: Buenos Aires, Argentina September 18-22, 2011 World Psychiatric Association, World Psychiatry 2011: Our Heritage and Our Future, the 15 th World Congress of Psychiatry More information: ress/2011argentinacongress.pdf Maastricht, Netherlands 2012 European Psychiatric Association: Consequences of Mental Health: 16 th EPA Symposium Section for Epidemiology and Social Psychiatry Editor of IFPE bulletin Jens Christoffer Skogen, University of Bergen, Norway 6