Modeling the sources of mental illness stigma in England and the United States

Recent years have seen a resurgence of scholarly interest in the causes and consequences of the stigma of mental illness. For the most part, however, these studies have not sought to examine how public attitudes toward mental illness operate cross-nationally. In this study we utilize nationally representative survey data collected in England and the United States to derive and test a model of the sources of one form of mental illness stigma, public preferences for social distance. Both similarities and differences in this model are identified and discussed.