http://gsp.sagepub.com/content/8/3/378
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/1468018108095634
Global Social Policy 2008 8: 378
Vishal Bhavsar and Dinesh Bhugra
Globalization: Mental Health and Social Economic Factors
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378 A RT I C L E
Globalization: Mental
Health and Social Economic
Factors
V I S H A L B H AV S A R
Guy?s Hospital, UK
D I N E S H B H U G R A
King?s College London, UK
abstract Several factors associated with globalization have
mental health consequences. This article reviews the
literature on mental health and inequality, occupational
patterns and identity shifts before considering the role of
globalization as an acculturative stressor. We argue that a
re-evaluation of mental health policy in light of globalization
must look further than current studies of migrants to consider
indigenous communities where models of social experience
and behaviour are changing.
keywords economic factors, globalization, mental health, social
and cultural factors
Global Social Policy Copyright ? 2008 1468-0181 vol. 8(3): 378?396; 095634
SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)
DOI: 10.1177/1468018108095634 http://gsp.sagepub.com
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Introduction
The increasing social, economic and cultural interconnection between communities
has made mobility ? social, individual, and that of goods and ideas ?
very easy. The implications of such a massive transformation in human relations
can be seen at various levels: individual, local, national, regional and
supra-regional. The changes associated with these processes are key to understanding
the responses of individuals and governments. The additional impact of
multinational corporations and economic rationalizations on individuals, cultures
and the functioning of the body politic have to be understood in the context of
globalization. The interaction of cultural beliefs across communities, whether
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they are in geographical contact or indirectly exposed, can lead to changes in
individuals as a result of acculturative processes. These processes change the
way people view their own cultural values and those from other parts of the
world. It is entirely likely that when two cultures come into contact, either
through trade or through media, their expectations of each other and of themselves
also change. Altered economic growth can further add to this stress and
contribute to mental health problems.
It can be said that we are now accustomed to the ?brave new world of globalization?
(Bhugra and Mastrogianni, 2004: 10) and to the discourses that surround
it. A very general economic definition of globalization is the ?worldwide
process of homogenizing prices, products, wages, rates of interest and profits?
(Shariff, 2003: 163?78). Commentators outside the economic discipline
define it in even broader terms as ?a process in which the traditional boundaries
separating individuals and societies gradually and increasingly recede?
(Okasha, 2005: 1?2). As Grint (2005: 360) points out, the large-scale movement
of goods across national boundaries has a long history, involving organizations
such as the Muscovy Company (1555) and the East India Company
(1600). Manifestations of globalization have been cited as including rapid
communication, cheap modes of travel, commercial deregulation, the growth
of international political organizations and increasing cross-cultural communication
(Okasha, 2005: 1?2). Importantly, however we choose to define globalization,
we should note that the social processes associated with it have
direct bearing on both individuals and communities in turn. In this article we
discuss some of these interactions and their manifestations in relation to mental
health. The American Psychiatric Association?s (2000) most current
