Running Header: MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS

Mental Health Problems

Mental Health Problems of Young Afro-Caribbean Men

Introduction

Mental health is traditionally defined in terms of emotional well-being and an absence of mental illness. More recent perspectives take a holistic approach that considers how social and cultural variables, such as gender, interact with health. Mental health affects the lives and well-being of millions of people throughout the world. The exact number of persons who suffer from some form of it is not known. Many afflicted people do not come to the attention of reporting agencies and community investigators face a multitude of problems in obtaining fully reliable data on the extent of mental disorders in non institutionalized populations. But enough data are available in advanced societies to make relatively accurate assessments, and it is clear that mental disorder is a major social problem.

This report has been written for the Community Resource Allocation Meeting in order to request a funding for the group made for the treatment young Afro-Caribbean men mental issues like schizophrenia. The purpose of this Group is to ensure that African and Caribbean men access to high quality mental health treatment. The services of this group will help contribute to the countering the effects of discrimination social exclusion and provide treatment for the young Afro-Caribbean men mental illness due to these problems.

Discussion

Health and Illness

Medical anthropologists disagree about definitions of the terms health and illness. A complicating factor is that health and illness are not-and never have been-opposites, since both health and illness can reside within the same individual at the same time. Clearly, health, illness, and disease are related concepts. But how does illness relate to disease? All definitions of health are imbued with moral, ethical, and political implications. Perhaps the broadest definition of health is that proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO), defining health with reference to an “overall sense of well-being.” By WHO's criteria, only a relatively small percentage of the world's population could be classified as healthy.

Medical anthropologists find it necessary to distinguish disease from illness (Beyerstein, 1997; Eisenberg, 1977; Helman, 2001). Beyerstein argues that the term disease applies mainly to organic, physical conditions that can be traced to viruses and bacterial infections, tissue damage, cancerous growths, and so on, whileillness refers to how patients perceive the physiological experience of “things not being quite right.” He narrows this distinction even further by contending that disease is primarily organic, while illness is primarily psychological. Not all medical anthropologists would accept his distinction.

Mental Health Problems

Mental disorder affects the lives and well-being of millions of people throughout the world. The exact number of persons who suffer from some form of it is not known. Many afflicted people do not come to the attention of reporting agencies and community investigators face a multitude of problems in obtaining fully reliable data on the extent of mental disorders in non institutionalized populations. But enough data are available in advanced societies to make relatively accurate assessments, and it is clear that mental disorder is a major ...