Approved Research

The transition and related risk factors for mental health diseases

Lay summary

Mental health plays an increasingly important role in achieving global development goals. There has been evidence that mental health is affected by both genetic and environmental factors; however, the potential mechanism of mental health diseases is not yet clear. Therefore, exploring the potential mechanism of mental health diseases and discovering early diagnosis targets are important scientific issues that need to be solved urgently. This project aims to utilize the UK Biobank data to identify important factors that could increase the risk of mental health diseases such as affective disorder. Moreover, based on the research basis of the depressed people cohort in our study, this project aims to compare the risk factors associated with different mental health diseases among UK and Chinese adults. Besides, we would like to examine the extent to which mental health problems could predict future physical diseases in adults enrolled in the UK Biobank. The estimated duration of this project is 36 months. The present project might have significant implications for the exploration of the potential mechanism of genetic and environmental factors leading to mental health diseases, using the UK Biobank data to deeply explore the biological indicators with diagnostic value, construct a predictive model for the risk of mental health diseases, and provide new targets and new ideas for the prevention and treatment of mental health diseases.