Exploring the Relationships Between Mental Health and Sociostructural Inequalities

Abstract

According to the World Health Organisation, approximately 450 million people worldwide have a mental disorder. Moreover, mental disorders account for 23 percent of the global burden of disease, which is higher than that for cancers and cardiovascular disease. Influences on mental well-being are complex and often involve interactions between several different socio-economic and socio-demographic factors. A range of large-scale survey datasets are now available that feature information on mental health and allow the exploration of a wide-range of risk factors that might influence mental health, featuring designs, such as repeated contacts data, that could support new insights into influences on mental health. This study exploits a selection of contemporary survey data resources and explores the complexity of mental health and its relation to a range of economic and socio-demographic factors. Analytical chapters evaluate four key areas of influence on mental health: to explore the pattern and variation of mental health and well-being across socio-demographic and socio-economic indicators; to explore transitions in labour market status and their influence on mental health and well-being; to examine the relationship between mental health and fine-grained occupational differences; to explore cross-national differences in the way that happiness and subjective well-being is linked to socio-economic and socio-demographic differences during 2006, 2008 and 2010.