Urban living and bipolar disorder: a review of the recent evidence

Environmental and community-level characteristics may play a more significant role in bipolar disorder than traditional geographic definitions of urbanicity. However, findings remain fragmented due to variable operationalization, small study numbers, and limited replication. Future work requires clearer differentiation between urbanization constructs, adoption of standardized or context-specific measures, investigation of macro- and micro-environmental mechanisms, and comparative analyses across bipolar disorder subtypes and related disorders.