麻豆社

Researchers who have spent the last two and a half years looking at how welfare reforms and austerity have affected mental health in low-income communities, say we are over-medicalising poverty.

The study titled "Poverty, Pathology and Pills" has been looking at how depression is treated in impoverished communities in the South West. It say that the stresses of life on a low incomes are too often treated as a purely medical problem, when their research suggests social problems like unemployment or cuts to services add to mental stress.

The report is a product of the Destress project, a collaboration between Exeter and Plymouth Universities.
Dr Felicity Thomas was one of the principal investigators and PM's reporter Chris Vallance went to meet her and some of the volunteers who took part.

(Photo: Barne Barton Estate, Plymouth. Credit: Destress Project)