Can PTSD in refugees affect their children’s well-being via harsher parenting styles?

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David Turgoose writes his debut elf blog on a longitudinal cohort study, which looks at the effect of post-traumatic stress disorder on refugees’ parenting and their children’s mental health.

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Can smoking cessation improve cognitive functioning in people with psychosis?

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Dafni Katsampa explores a recent prospective cohort study that investigates the association between smoking behaviour and cognitive functioning in patients with psychosis, their siblings and healthy control subjects.

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Physical activity participation in severe mental illness: one step closer? #ClosingTheGapSMI

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Suzan Hassan writes her debut elf blog on a recent research paper that highlights the factors associated with regular physical activity participation among people with severe mental illness.

Today sees the launch of the new Closing The Gap Network in York. Follow #ClosingTheGapSMI on Twitter for live updates throughout the day.

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Genetic predictors of depression trajectories in adolescence

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Megan Skelton explores a study that uses polygenic scores in the context of longitudinal developmental data, to characterise developmental trajectories and the role of neuropsychiatric genetic risk variants in early-onset depression.

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Lack of wealth may increase our risk of dementia

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A group of UCL Mental Health Masters students summarise a recent cohort study of the individual and area-based socioeconomic factors associated with dementia incidence in England.

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Smoking bans and violence on mental health wards: what’s the link?

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John Baker isn’t convinced by the findings of a systematic review on smoking bans and violence in mental health settings, which concludes that the introduction of smoke-free policies generally do not lead to an increase in violence.

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Can museums help prevent dementia?

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Dafni Katsampa and Derek Tracy get all cultured and summarise a retrospective cohort study of museum attendance and dementia incidence, which suggests that cultural engagement may help protect us from cognitive decline.

The research is led by Daisy Fancourt who heads up the new MARCH Network which is launching later this month.

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Victims of crime with mental illness: differences between Denmark and the US

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Chris Millar writes his debut blog on a recent paper that explores the link between mental illness and being subjected to crime in Denmark and the United States. This blog asks: how much do poverty and the safety net matter? There are some important implications for policy makers.

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Crime victimisation: vulnerability increased after onset of mental illness

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Danny Whiting writes his debut elf blog on a recent Danish study that uses police data to measure the risk of being subjected to crime, including violent crime, after onset of mental illness.

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The cost of persuasive design: digital media use and ADHD

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Elvira Perez Vallejos and David Daley consider the findings of a recent cohort study in JAMA that looks into the association between digital media use and subsequent symptoms of ADHD in adolescents.

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