P58 The death of social fragmentation: a secondary analysis of health survey data

Abstract

Background Social Fragmentation is the idea that isolation and disorganisation within an area influences individual health. Some, but not all, studies have shown it to be related to suicide and parasuicide risk, higher GHQ12 scores and higher admission rates for psychoses. The aim of this study is to determine if fragmentation per se affects mental health or if the association is due to other factors relating to fragmented areas. Methods A measure of social fragmentation was constructed from four census variables (as per Condgon, 1996) for each of the 890 super-output areas in Northern Ireland (avg pop. 1900). These were divided into quintiles and added to the 2005 Health and Social Wellbeing Survey (HSWB) as a contextual variable. Respondent characteristics known to be associated with mental health were included such as age and sex, marital status, living alone, perceived social support, socio-economic status (based on car availability and housing tenure) and health status (based on )