Background: Low socioeconomic status has consistently been associated with poorer health outcomes. Few studies have used ecological analysis to explore relationships between area measures of deprivation and use of mental health legislation.
Methods: We used an ecological design to explore associations between two area measures of relative deprivation and the two most commonly used sections of New Zealand mental health legislation.
Results: High levels of relative deprivation were positively correlated with use of both acute and long-term community care provisions of mental health legislation with the correlation with long-term care achieving significance (r = .518, p = .016). Low levels of relative deprivation showed negative correlations with use of both provisions. The correlation of –.493 between low levels of relative deprivation and acute care provisions was significant at p = .023. In stepwise regression, the proportion of the population aged 15–64 contributed to the model for section 11, but ethnicity contributed to neither model.
Conclusion: Mental health legislation is used disproportionately in areas with high levels of relative deprivation. The results have implications for regional allocation of funding for mental health and social services to support community-based care. Further research is needed to explore other factors that may account for the regional variation.