Title: The International Political Sociology of Psychology and Mental Health
Abstract: Over the last decade, mental health has become a matter of sustained attention in international public policy. In 2001, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a major report on Mental Health: New Understanding, New Hope. It stressed that one in four people will be affected by mental or neurological disorders, globally, creating a need to close the “treatment gap” between rich and poor countries. This approach has been bolstered by medical literature, notably a 2007 Lancet series on Global Mental Health, which argued that mental disorders increase the risk of communicable and noncommunicable diseases and hence “no health without mental health.” Access to psychiatric and psychological services has been pitched as a matter of global equality: Those living in lower-income countries are viewed as suffering from a lack of access to mental health care on par with those in higher-income countries. This claim constitutes a major attempt to extend the authority of Western medical notions of mental illness across the globe, building on the broader global health agenda, which has traditionally focused on diseases and emergency medicine.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 3
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