For those living with serious mental illness, ensuring primary care providers do not overlook their chronic health problems is essential because hospitalization and, even, death from chronic health issues is a real risk. In fact, people with serious mental illness live lives that are 30% shorter than the rest of the population.
A Telfer-led research project titled “Primary Care for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness” is receiving nearly $1 million in funding over five years from the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) to examine how primary care providers can offer better primary health care for people living with serious mental illness. Professor Agnes Grudniewicz and the research team hope their analysis will better explain the primary health care experience of this population group, what types of primary care service this population uses, and how to improve the primary care system.
