Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MINDMAP (PROMOTING MENTAL WELLBEING IN THE AGEING URBAN POPULATION: DETERMINANTS, POLICIES AND INTERVENTIONS IN EUROPEAN CITIES)

Teaser

Major depressive disorder, dementia, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse affect a substantial part of the European older population. Over 70% of Europeans reside in cities, and this percentage will increase in the next decades. Urbanization and ageing have enormous...

Summary

Major depressive disorder, dementia, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse affect a substantial part of the European older population. Over 70% of Europeans reside in cities, and this percentage will increase in the next decades. Urbanization and ageing have enormous implications for public mental health. While cities pose major challenges for older citizens, they also offer unique opportunities for the design of policies and clinical and public health interventions that promote mental health and ensure the delivery of health care services for the old. The MINDMAP project started in 2016 and aims to identify the opportunities offered by the urban environment for the promotion of mental wellbeing and cognitive function of older individuals in Europe.

We are bringing together longitudinal studies across cities in Europe, the US and Canada and combining them with information on urban characteristics and policies. This enriched set of data allows us to unravel the causal pathways and multi-level interactions between the urban environment and the social, behavioural, psychosocial and biological determinants of mental health and cognitive function in older adults. Specifically, we will (a) assess the impact of the urban environment on the mental wellbeing and disorders associated with ageing, and estimate the extent to which exposure to specific urban environmental factors and policies explain differences in ageing-related mental and cognitive disorders both within as well as between cities, (b) assess the causal pathways and interactions between the urban environment and the individual factors affecting mental health and cognitive ageing in older adults, (c) use agent-based modelling to simulate the effect of urban environmental, prevention and care policies on the trajectories of mental health and cognitive ageing across cities in Europe. Knowledge will significantly contribute to future-proof preventive strategies in urban settings favouring the mental dimension of healthy ageing, the reduction of the negative impact of mental disorders on co-morbidities, and maintaining cognitive ability in old age.

Work performed

In the second reporting period of MINDMAP, substantial progress has been made within the MINDMAP project. Delays present in the beginning of the project have been caught up on substantially. Nevertheless, the impact of the introduction of the GDPR on the progress of the project is substantial.

MINDMAP has started to reach the first results that contribute towards it’s high ambitions. An inspiring workshop on the conceptual model, as well as literature research, allows further detailing of the original conceptual model using state-of-the-art interdisciplinary knowledge. The core of the project is the creation of a data infrastructure allowing unique analyses of the relation between the environmental characteristics and mental wellbeing and intermediary variables across cities. In this second reporting period, the integrated database infrastructure was filled with harmonized data, to the extent that GDPR-related complications allowed us to do so. Empirical analyses were done on datasets in which urban environmental factors are linked to individual behavioural and mental health outcomes. Furthermore, the impact of ageing-related policies was investigated for mental wellbeing of older persons. Two agent-based models were developed illustrating how (urban) policies can influence mental wellbeing of older adults, according to a systems approach. All work packages were involved in training activities to share findings of the study with (local) stakeholders. Multiple dissemination activities, at local, national and European level, were undertaken to share these new insights with fellow researchers across fields, policy makers, professionals and politicians. These activities include scientific publications in high impact journals, presentations at national and international conferences and discussions and workshops with interdisciplinary stakeholders.

Three project board meetings were organised, of which one was a face-to-face meeting in London. Working group meetings were held on overarching themes, most intensively concerning the harmonisation of the data in the platform. Numerous bilateral meetings were held. In the first 36 months of the project, 18 deliverables were originally scheduled. Of these, the vast majority have been submitted. Deliverable 1.3, the ethics report, due at the end of this reporting period (M36), and 2.1, the approval of the data sharing, are well on its way but still ongoing due continuous new information how to solve GDPR-related challenges, which requires a lot of extra deliberations with (local) privacy and data protection officers. Deliverable 12.1 (results of the first consultation with the policy stakeholder platform) was originally planned in month 8, but has strategically been postponed towards the end of the project to gain maximum impact.

To summarize, MINDMAP is well on track to deliver the output described in the Grant Agreement. The main problem of the project relates to work that requires adherence to the GDPR. The new privacy regulations are new for the project team. Far more important however, and to a large extent beyond control of the MINDMAP team, local privacy experts also need to deal with both an innovative approach (our data platform) and new privacy regulations. We have experienced a large diversity in behavior and decision-making capability between local privacy experts, which required and still requires stamina and time to find solutions. While this has delayed our initial plans, we are confident that main issues are solved, and that we soon enter a very productive and inspiring phase in the project, in which we can actually use the data for comparative analyses on a large scale and in different work packages.

Final results

The MINDMAP project has the potential to improve the understanding, prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment of, mental conditions and disorders of older people. We will do so by examining the interaction between urban environmental factors and individual determinants of mental health and cognitive function associated with ageing. We integrate theories and perspectives from multiple disciplines (e.g. public health and epidemiology, psychiatry, geography, genetics, biology, behavioural sciences, social sciences, and environmental sciences); harmonise and exploit data from existing longitudinal cohorts; and adopt a solution-oriented approach by assessing the impact of existing policies in a system-based model. We are committed to have a substantial impact on policy by assisting policymakers in developing and implementing structural environmental-based interventions that will contribute to establishing preventative strategies favouring the mental dimension of healthy ageing; maintaining cognitive abilities of older people; and reducing the negative impact of mental disorders on co-morbidities. Apart from an impact on the individual lives of older adults, the project will contribute to the sustainability, equity and economic viability of cities by helping to design cities that help individuals to stay healthy and active.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.mindmap-cities.eu/.