"Social (In)Justice and Mental Health introduces readers to the concept of social justice and role that social injustice plays in the identification, diagnosis, and management of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Unfair and unjust policies and practices, bolstered by deep-seated beliefs about the inferiority of some groups, has led to a small number of people having tremendous advantages, freedoms, and opportunities, while a growing number are denied those liberties and rights. The book provides a framework for thinking about why these inequities exist and persist and provides clinicians with a road map to address these inequalities as they relate to racism, the criminal justice system, and other systems and diagnoses. Social (In)Justice and Mental Health addresses the context in which mental health care is delivered, strategies for raising consciousness in the mental health profession, and ways to improve treatment while redressing injustice"--
This second edition of Social Injustice and Public Health is a comprehensive, up-to-date, evidence-based resource on the relationship of social injustice to many aspects of public health. With contributions from leading experts in public health, medicine, health, social sciences, and other fields, this integrated book documents the adverse effects of social injustice on health and makes recommendations on what needs to be done to reduce social injustice and thereby improve the public's health. Social Injustice and Public Health is divided into four parts: · The nature of social injustice and its impact on public health · How the health of specific population groups is affected by social injustice · How social injustice adversely affects medical care, infectious and chronic non-communicable disease, nutrition, mental health, violence, environmental and occupational health, oral health, and aspects of international health · What needs to be done, such as addressing social injustice in a human rights context, promoting social justice through public health policies and programs, strengthening communities, and promoting equitable and sustainable human development With 78 contributors who are experts in their respective subject areas, this textbook is ideal for students and practitioners in public health, medicine, nursing, and other health sciences. It is the definitive resource for anyone seeking to better understand the social determinants of health and how to address them to reduce social injustice and improve the public's health.
The Social Determinants of Mental Health aims to fill the gap that exists in the psychiatric, scholarly, and policy-related literature on the social determinants of mental health: those factors stemming from where we learn, play, live, work, and age that impact our overall mental health and well-being. The editors and an impressive roster of chapter authors from diverse scholarly backgrounds provide detailed information on topics such as discrimination and social exclusion; adverse early life experiences; poor education; unemployment, underemployment, and job insecurity; income inequality, poverty, and neighborhood deprivation; food insecurity; poor housing quality and housing instability; adverse features of the built environment; and poor access to mental health care. This thought-provoking book offers many beneficial features for clinicians and public health professionals: Clinical vignettes are included, designed to make the content accessible to readers who are primarily clinicians and also to demonstrate the practical, individual-level applicability of the subject matter for those who typically work at the public health, population, and/or policy level. Policy implications are discussed throughout, designed to make the content accessible to readers who work primarily at the public health or population level and also to demonstrate the policy relevance of the subject matter for those who typically work at the clinical level. All chapters include five to six key points that focus on the most important content, helping to both prepare the reader with a brief overview of the chapter's main points and reinforce the "take-away" messages afterward. In addition to the main body of the book, which focuses on selected individual social determinants of mental health, the volume includes an in-depth overview that summarizes the editors' and their colleagues' conceptualization, as well as a final chapter coauthored by Dr. David Satcher, 16th Surgeon General of the United States, that serves as a "Call to Action," offering specific actions that can be taken by both clinicians and policymakers to address the social determinants of mental health. The editors have succeeded in the difficult task of balancing the individual/clinical/patient perspective and the population/public health/community point of view, while underscoring the need for both groups to work in a unified way to address the inequities in twenty-first century America. The Social Determinants of Mental Health gives readers the tools to understand and act to improve mental health and reduce risk for mental illnesses for individuals and communities. Students preparing for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) will also benefit from this book, as the MCAT in 2015 will test applicants' knowledge of social determinants of health. The social determinants of mental health are not distinct from the social determinants of physical health, although they deserve special emphasis given the prevalence and burden of poor mental health.
An exceptional showcase of interdisciplinary research, Critical Inquiries for Social Justice in Mental Health presents various critical theories, methodologies, and methods for transforming mental health research and fostering socially-just mental health practices. Marina Morrow and Lorraine Halinka Malcoe have assembled an array of international scholars, activists, and practitioners whose work exposes and disrupts the dominant neoliberal and individualist practices found in contemporary mental research, policy, and practice. The contributors employ a variety of methodologies including intersectional, decolonizing, indigenous, feminist, post-structural, transgender, queer, and critical realist approaches in order to interrogate the manifestation of power relations in mental health systems and its impact on people with mental distress. Additionally, the contributors enable the reader to reimagine systems and supports designed from the bottom up, in which the people most affected have decision-making authority over their formations. Critical Inquiries for Social Justice in Mental Health demonstrates why and how theory matters for knowledge production, policy, and practice in mental health, and it creates new imaginings of decolonized and democratized mental health systems, of abundant community-centred supports, and of a world where human differences are affirmed.
Estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 4 Americans will experience a mental health problem or will misuse alcohol or drugs in their lifetimes. These disorders are among the most highly stigmatized health conditions in the United States, and they remain barriers to full participation in society in areas as basic as education, housing, and employment. Improving the lives of people with mental health and substance abuse disorders has been a priority in the United States for more than 50 years. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 is considered a major turning point in America's efforts to improve behavioral healthcare. It ushered in an era of optimism and hope and laid the groundwork for the consumer movement and new models of recovery. The consumer movement gave voice to people with mental and substance use disorders and brought their perspectives and experience into national discussions about mental health. However over the same 50-year period, positive change in American public attitudes and beliefs about mental and substance use disorders has lagged behind these advances. Stigma is a complex social phenomenon based on a relationship between an attribute and a stereotype that assigns undesirable labels, qualities, and behaviors to a person with that attribute. Labeled individuals are then socially devalued, which leads to inequality and discrimination. This report contributes to national efforts to understand and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that can lead to stigma and discrimination. Changing stigma in a lasting way will require coordinated efforts, which are based on the best possible evidence, supported at the national level with multiyear funding, and planned and implemented by an effective coalition of representative stakeholders. Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders: The Evidence for Stigma Change explores stigma and discrimination faced by individuals with mental or substance use disorders and recommends effective strategies for reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek treatment and other supportive services. It offers a set of conclusions and recommendations about successful stigma change strategies and the research needed to inform and evaluate these efforts in the United States.
There is a healthy development in the human service professions these days. At community clinics, private practices, and universities around the country mental health professionals and service providers are working with increased awareness of the toxic effects of social inequities in the lives of people they aim to help. Quietly, by acting out thei
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Suicide and Social Justice unites diverse scholarly and social justice perspectives on the international problem of suicide and suicidal behavior. With a focus on social justice, the book seeks to understand the complex interactions between individual and group experiences with suicidality and various social pathologies, including inequality, intergenerational poverty, racism, sexism, and homophobia. Chapters investigate the underlying and often overlooked connections that link rising rates and disproportionate concentrations of suicide within specific populations to wider social, political, and economic conditions. This edited volume brings diverse scholarly and social justice perspectives to bear on the problem of suicide and suicidal behavior, equipping researchers and practitioners with the knowledge they need to fundamentally rethink suicide and suicide prevention.
In this exploration of new territory between ethics and epistemology, Miranda Fricker argues that there is a distinctively epistemic type of injustice, in which someone is wronged specifically in their capacity as a knower. Justice is one of the oldest and most central themes in philosophy, but in order to reveal the ethical dimension of our epistemic practices the focus must shift to injustice. Fricker adjusts the philosophical lens so that we see through to the negative space that is epistemic injustice. The book explores two different types of epistemic injustice, each driven by a form of prejudice, and from this exploration comes a positive account of two corrective ethical-intellectual virtues. The characterization of these phenomena casts light on many issues, such as social power, prejudice, virtue, and the genealogy of knowledge, and it proposes a virtue epistemological account of testimony. In this ground-breaking book, the entanglements of reason and social power are traced in a new way, to reveal the different forms of epistemic injustice and their place in the broad pattern of social injustice.
An urgent exposéf the mental health crisis in our courts, jails, and prisons America has made mental illness a crime. Jails in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago each house more people with mental illnesses than any hospital. As many as half of all people in America's jails and prisons have a psychiatric disorder. One in four fatal police shootings involves a person with such disorders. In this revelatory book, journalist Alisa Roth goes deep inside the criminal justice system to show how and why it has become a warehouse where inmates are denied proper treatment, abused, and punished in ways that make them sicker. Through intimate stories of people in the system and those trying to fix it, Roth reveals the hidden forces behind this crisis and suggests how a fairer and more humane approach might look. Insane is a galvanizing wake-up call for criminal justice reformers and anyone concerned about the plight of our most vulnerable.
