Handbook of Geography in Mental Health Research
Tomoko McGaughey & Paul Peters, Editors
De Gruyter Press, 2026
The connection between geography and health demonstrates that the locations we inhabit – where we live, work, and play – directly influence our physical and mental well-being. Health geography explores how the factors impacting health, health outcomes, and health systems are patterned, structured, regulated, and managed, using a spatial lens to evaluate these factors across space and place (Dummer, 2008; Vine, Mulligan, Harris, & Dean, 2023). Geographical patterns and relationships of mental health-related phenomena can be evaluated using spatial analytic tools. Indeed, geography and spatial analysis have grown to play a very important role in evaluating and planning for health and care provision. This includes the incorporation of geolocating healthcare facilities and resources, condition prevalence, environmental factors, population demographics, and more (Dummer, 2008; Wang, 2019).
Spatial analysis and visualization can provide valuable insights into the causes of ill health, patterns of mental health outcomes, service resource allocation, and identification of high-need service areas (Rosenkrantz, 2022). This type of analysis and utilization of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) empowers health and care service providers and users to make informed decisions, improve program delivery and outcomes, and enhance the overall sustainability of publicly provided health program delivery (Fradelos, et al., 2024; Rosenkrantz, 2022). These methods are universal, and they can be applied to developed and underdeveloped countries and adapted for a range of research questions across diverse populations.
Although the fields of medical geography and spatial epidemiology has developed rapidly in the 21stcentury, the use of spatial analytic techniques in mental health fields has lagged (Yang, 2019). Few researchers work on the applications of geographic sciences in the field of mental health, and equally, there are few resources available that present the application of these techniques in research.
This handbook will become the defining introduction to and exploration of geographic applications in mental health research and, importantly, provide practical methods for the integration of spatial analytic data and techniques in mental health research.
This handbook will be structured into 5 main sections that will provide a background to geographic analysis, explorations of current work, and potential future research areas.
Section one will introduce the topic and explore the historical development of geographical applications in public health, known limitations to assessing public health using geography, and ways to assess mental health using geography.
Section two will explore the individual-level aspects of geography in mental health. This will include spatial analysis of individuals with specific conditions and an overview of generalized analysis for specific populations. Techniques can include density mapping, hot spot analysis, and predictive modelling.
Section three will include chapters addressing horizontal factors that promote or degrade mental health. These factors are broad and can influence multiple conditions but can be ameliorated via policy. This includes environmental characteristics such as green and blue space, air pollution, and neighbourhood marginalization.
Section four will explore the geography of mental health concerning vertical resources. This includes the examination of types of services and generalized applied models of analysis such as proximity analysis, catchment analysis, and utilization analysis.
Section five will look at other resources that can be introduced to analysis, including the built environment, neighbourhood characteristics, and individual characteristics and their interaction with the people and/or resources mentioned in sections 2 and 3.
Section six will explore issues and considerations when exploring mental health through geography, including spatial disclosure, confidentiality, and types of data to be used in this analysis. Each section will feature chapters on applied methodologies and techniques to conduct analysis and introduce some of the most critical contributions to mental health and geography that have been produced through peer-reviewed research.