Cardiometabolic Risk Prediction in Early Psychosis: Tackling Inequities

Guest Speaker: Dr Ben Perry

The 15 year average shortened life-expectancy faced by people with severe mental illness (SMI), mostly explained by preventable physical conditions, is one of the most pressing health inequalities faced in modern psychiatry. Where prediction models have for decades been used routinely in clinical practice for primary prevention of adverse cardiometabolic outcomes in the general population, existing routinely used tools severely underpredict risk in young people at the onset of SMI, leading to a propogation of existing health inequalities for this group.

In this talk, Ben will describe his work developing PsyMetRiC, the first cardiometabolic risk prediction algorithm tailored and accurate for young people with SMI. Validated in eight countries across four continents, PsyMetRiC is now being revised and updated for accuracy, equity and usefulness. This presentation will highlight some of the challenges of implementing prediction models into clinical practice, and shine a light on the growing recognition of inequities baked into our health record datasets.

Speaker Biography

Ben is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Birmingham, and Consultant Psychiatrist in the Birmingham Early Intervention Services. Ben’s primary research interest is improving our understanding of, and ability to intervene in, the physical morbidity of major mental illnesses like schizophrenia and depression. He has expertise in using cutting edge methods straddling observational and genetic epidemiology, risk prediction and the development of predictive algorithms, data science, and causal inference.

 This talk will be taking place in person and online. Please click below to register.