Urbanization and Mental Health in Developing Countries

THIS BOOK EXAMINES the links between rapid urbanization in the Third World and mental illnesses which, despite the fact that they tend to receive less attention than diseases with high mortality rates, are of great importance in terms of their cost to society and the suffering of individuals. The links between mental health and urbanization are approached from a variety of angles, providing a cross-section of “the cutting edge” of research in this field, a field which, the editors note, is still at an early stage of development. The book contains articles by a wide range of authors and explores various areas of the relationship between mental health and urbanization. These include an historical perspective of the interest in the links between the two areas; a contemporary analysis of the processes of urbanization and mental health in Latin America which draws on a “political economy” model; a number of articles dealing with mental health and vulnerable groups in cities (such as low-income women, the elderly and street children) based on an analysis of case studies; and two articles which examine qualitative and quantitative approaches to mental health assessments and look at their shortcomings and benefits. The book concludes with a chapter on community based and health service responses to the problems of mental illness in cities in the South, and a final chapter which looks at future directions for research into the links between urbanization and mental health, and makes a call for this area of issues to be more firmly integrated into the development agenda.