Scientific Presentations

LabTalks@­SocialDemography

Department Social Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, Germany, September 16, 2025

1:00 PM: Talk with Jiani Yan - Discovering Prevalent Chronic Disease Profiles with Advanced Clustering Methods

Abstract

Chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have become pervasive, representing a significant public health challenge in the United Kingdom, particularly due to rising multimorbidity among older populations. Existing research often lacks a holistic, population-level perspective on multimorbidity patterns and associated social determinants. Using the UK Biobank dataset, this study employs a bottom-up analytical approach combining Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) and Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering (HDBSCAN) to explore chronic disease patterns across 316 chronic conditions. Nine distinct multimorbidity clusters were identified, characterised by various dominant conditions: Healthy, Asthma, Hypertension, Allergic Rhinitis, Hypertension+Respiratory, Depression, Other Prevalent Diseases, and Heavy Cardiovascular Disease (CVD). Subsequent analysis of social determinants revealed significant differences between healthy and disease-affected groups, notably influenced by age, gender, and drinking behaviours. Clusters such as Heavy CVD showed particularly high disease burdens among older, predominantly male populations, while mental health-related clusters like Depression+ were closely linked with adverse psychosocial factors. This integrated approach highlights the necessity of considering comprehensive social determinants alongside detailed multimorbidity profiles to inform targeted public health interventions and personalised clinical practices.

1:45 PM: Talk with Gustavo Ahumada - Social Determinants of Mental Health: A Research Agenda

Abstract

Mental health disorders affect millions of people worldwide, placing a heavy burden on individuals, families, healthcare systems, and economies. While research has greatly advanced our understanding of individual risk factors–such as genetics, biology, and personal behaviors–much less is known about the social determinants of mental health. Emerging evidence shows that the neighborhoods in which people live, the networks they belong to, and the structural environments shaped by policies and institutions exert profound effects on mental well-being. Yet, these factors remain relatively under-explored compared to the voluminous literature on individual risk factors. This research agenda ask: Do social structures and relations–neighborhoods, networks, class, and education–generate inequalities in mental health outcomes? I address this question in the Chilean context through three studies. First, I examine how neighborhood cohesion affects disparities in depressive symptoms among adults. Adopting a multidimensional framework, I conceptualize neighborhood cohesion through four components: neighborhood attachment, neighborhood relations, orientation toward the common good, and adherence to social norms. Second, I assess whether the socioeconomic composition, size, and prestige of individuals’ social networks are associated with lower depressive symptoms, using the position generator–a widely recognized instrument for mapping access to social resources acroos ocupations and classes. Finally, I test whether increasing an individual´s education influences their mental health outcomes by exploiting a 2003 education reform that increased compulsory schooling from eight to tweve years. Collectively, these studies advance understanding of how layered social environments shape mental health inequalities.

Room 400 and Zoom

Please register via email (office-myrskyla@demogr.mpg.de) for online participation. The Zoom link will be sent to you afterwards.

LabTalk, September, 16th from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (Rostock time)