Premature Mortality and Health Inequality among Adult New Yorkers with Serious Mental Illness

Although numerous studies have documented excess mortality and health inequality among individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), none has been done among individuals in a large, diverse urban setting, such as New York City (NYC). We used referral data for adults aged 18 and older referred to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene public mental health services between January 2004 and December 2018 and matched it to the NYC death registry. Age at death, leading causes of death, years of potential life lost (YPLL), and standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were calculated for this population. We found individuals with SMI in NYC died at younger ages and had higher rates of YPLL compared to the total population (147.4 YPLL vs. 66.8 YPLL per 1000 population). Age and gender-adjusted SMRs show these individuals have more than twice the mortality rate of the total NYC adult population (overall SMR 2.2 [95% CI 2.1-2.2]). Cause-specific SMRs show an increased risk of death among SMI from diabetes (SMR 2.8 [95% CI 2.4-3.10]), heart disease (SMR 2.7 [95% CI 2.6-2.9]), psychoactive substance use and accidental overdose (SMR 4.5 [95% CI 4.1-4.9]), and suicide (SMR 6.7 [95% CI 6.0-7.4]). Our results highlight the need to implement effective, preventive, and rehabilitative measures that integrate physical and behavioral healthcare services and address upstream drivers of health to achieve health equity and eliminate health disparities. In order to achieve gains in life expectancy, specific considerations for reducing excess mortality in the SMI population must be accounted for.