Chapter 28 - Women and global mental health: vulnerability and empowerment

Summary

This chapter takes an anthropological approach to the study of global mental health among women. It explores the cultural, economic, and political determinants of women's mental health in an effort to identify directions for future research on pathways to improve women's well-being, emphasizing the role of empowerment. The chapter elaborates upon the World Health Organization (WHO) analyses, utilizing the 2009 updates on the disability-adjusted life years (DALYS) and global burden of disease to consider comparisons between women and men in the context of selected countries. It presents global trends as well as a comparison across the world's populous countries and diverse predominantly Muslim countries of high, medium, and low income, three of which have been highly affected by war. Future research on global mental health of women should be grounded in the lived experience of mental illness in an inexorably entangled nexus of relations of culture, power, gender, and meaning.