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Social Vulnerability and Mental Health Inequalities in the “Syndemic”: Call for Action

Covid-19 is referred to as a “syndemic,” i.e., the consequences of the disease are exacerbated by social and economic disparity. Poor housing, unstable work conditions, caste, class, race and gender based inequities and low incomes have a profound effect on mental health and wellbeing. Such disparit...

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Autores principales: Mezzina, Roberto, Gopikumar, Vandana, Jenkins, John, Saraceno, Benedetto, Sashidharan, S. P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9210067/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35747101
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.894370
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author Mezzina, Roberto
Gopikumar, Vandana
Jenkins, John
Saraceno, Benedetto
Sashidharan, S. P.
author_facet Mezzina, Roberto
Gopikumar, Vandana
Jenkins, John
Saraceno, Benedetto
Sashidharan, S. P.
author_sort Mezzina, Roberto
collection PubMed
description Covid-19 is referred to as a “syndemic,” i.e., the consequences of the disease are exacerbated by social and economic disparity. Poor housing, unstable work conditions, caste, class, race and gender based inequities and low incomes have a profound effect on mental health and wellbeing. Such disparities are increasing between, among and within countries and are exacerbated by human rights violations, in institution and in society, stigma and discrimination. Social capital can mediate health outcomes, through trust and reciprocity, political participation, and by mental health service systems, which can be coercive or more open to demand of emancipation and freedom. Societal inequalities affect especially vulnerable groups, and Covid itself had a wider impact on the most socially vulnerable and marginalized populations, suffering for structural discrimination and violence. There are complex relations among these social processes and domains, and mental health inequalities and disparity. Participation and engagement of citizens and community organizations is now required in order to achieve a radical transformation in mental health. A Local and Global Action Plan has been launched recently, by a coalition of organizations representing people with lived experience of mental health care; who use services; family members, mental health professionals, policy makers and researchers, such as the International Mental Health Collaborating Network, the World Federation for Mental Health, the World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation, the Global Alliance of Mental Illness Advocacy Networks (GAMIAN), The Mental Health Resource Hub in Chennai, India, The Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH) and others. The Action Plan addresses the need for fundamental change by focusing on social determinants and achieving equity in mental health care. Equally the need for the politics of wellbeing has to be embedded in a system that places mental health within development and social justice paradigm, enhancing core human capabilities and contrasting discriminatory practices. These targets are for people and organizations to adopt locally within their communities and services, and also to indicate possible innovative solutions to Politics. This global endeavor may represent an alternative to the global mental discourse inspired by the traditional biomedical model.
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spelling pubmed-92100672022-06-22 Social Vulnerability and Mental Health Inequalities in the “Syndemic”: Call for Action Mezzina, Roberto Gopikumar, Vandana Jenkins, John Saraceno, Benedetto Sashidharan, S. P. Front Psychiatry Psychiatry Covid-19 is referred to as a “syndemic,” i.e., the consequences of the disease are exacerbated by social and economic disparity. Poor housing, unstable work conditions, caste, class, race and gender based inequities and low incomes have a profound effect on mental health and wellbeing. Such disparities are increasing between, among and within countries and are exacerbated by human rights violations, in institution and in society, stigma and discrimination. Social capital can mediate health outcomes, through trust and reciprocity, political participation, and by mental health service systems, which can be coercive or more open to demand of emancipation and freedom. Societal inequalities affect especially vulnerable groups, and Covid itself had a wider impact on the most socially vulnerable and marginalized populations, suffering for structural discrimination and violence. There are complex relations among these social processes and domains, and mental health inequalities and disparity. Participation and engagement of citizens and community organizations is now required in order to achieve a radical transformation in mental health. A Local and Global Action Plan has been launched recently, by a coalition of organizations representing people with lived experience of mental health care; who use services; family members, mental health professionals, policy makers and researchers, such as the International Mental Health Collaborating Network, the World Federation for Mental Health, the World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation, the Global Alliance of Mental Illness Advocacy Networks (GAMIAN), The Mental Health Resource Hub in Chennai, India, The Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH) and others. The Action Plan addresses the need for fundamental change by focusing on social determinants and achieving equity in mental health care. Equally the need for the politics of wellbeing has to be embedded in a system that places mental health within development and social justice paradigm, enhancing core human capabilities and contrasting discriminatory practices. These targets are for people and organizations to adopt locally within their communities and services, and also to indicate possible innovative solutions to Politics. This global endeavor may represent an alternative to the global mental discourse inspired by the traditional biomedical model. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-05-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9210067/ /pubmed/35747101 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.894370 Text en Copyright © 2022 Mezzina, Gopikumar, Jenkins, Saraceno and Sashidharan. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Mezzina, Roberto
Gopikumar, Vandana
Jenkins, John
Saraceno, Benedetto
Sashidharan, S. P.
Social Vulnerability and Mental Health Inequalities in the “Syndemic”: Call for Action
title Social Vulnerability and Mental Health Inequalities in the “Syndemic”: Call for Action
title_full Social Vulnerability and Mental Health Inequalities in the “Syndemic”: Call for Action
title_fullStr Social Vulnerability and Mental Health Inequalities in the “Syndemic”: Call for Action
title_full_unstemmed Social Vulnerability and Mental Health Inequalities in the “Syndemic”: Call for Action
title_short Social Vulnerability and Mental Health Inequalities in the “Syndemic”: Call for Action
title_sort social vulnerability and mental health inequalities in the “syndemic”: call for action
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9210067/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35747101
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.894370
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