How community physical, structural, and social stressors relate to mental health in the urban slums of Accra, Ghana

Urban health in developing counties is a major public health challenge. It has become increasingly evident that the dialog must expand to include mental health outcomes, and to shift focus to the facets of the urban environment that shape them. Population-based research is necessary, as empirical fi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health & place 2015-05, Vol.33, p.57-66
Main Authors: Greif, Meredith J., Nii-Amoo Dodoo, F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Depression - epidemiology
Developing Countries
Female
Ghana
Ghana - epidemiology
Health technology assessment
Humans
Male
Mental Health
Policy making
Poverty
Prevalence
Sanitation
Social Capital
Social cohesion
Socioeconomic Factors
Stress, Psychological
Structural analysis
Urban communities
Urban Health
Urban poverty and disorder
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Urban health in developing counties is a major public health challenge. It has become increasingly evident that the dialog must expand to include mental health outcomes, and to shift focus to the facets of the urban environment that shape them. Population-based research is necessary, as empirical findings linking the urban environment and mental health have primarily derived from developed countries, and may not be generalizable to developing countries. Thus, the current study assesses the prevalence of mental health problems (i.e., depression, perceived powerlessness), as well as their community-based predictors (i.e., crime, disorder, poverty, poor sanitation, local social capital and cohesion), among a sample of 690 residents in three poor urban communities in Accra, Ghana. It uncovers that residents in poor urban communities in developing countries suffer from mental health problems as a result of local stressors, which include not only physical and structural factors but social ones. Social capital and social cohesion show complex, often unhealthy, relationships with mental health, suggesting considerable drawbacks in making social capital a key focus among policymakers.
ISSN:1353-8292
1873-2054
DOI:10.1016/j.healthplace.2015.02.002