Ethnicity and Mental Health: Transformative Community Approaches

Dear Colleagues,

The Global Mental Health Agenda has underscored the critical role that ethnicity and social conditions play in people’s mental health. A recent report of the UN Special Rapporteur outlines that good mental health and wellbeing must be defined by the social, psychosocial, political, economic, and physical environment that enable individuals and populations to live a life of dignity, with full enjoyment of their rights and in the equitable pursuit of their potential. Ethnicity is strongly linked to our cultural differentiation; the meanings and narratives that we share with others, and the common social and cultural codes that foster social interactions and self-identification. The growing ethnic diversity in our societies and global migration patterns have implications for people’s right to full participation in society and to enjoy mental health and wellbeing according to the ethnic patterns of populations.

Today, many ethnic minority individuals are exposed to coercive prejudices and stereotypes and social and economic conditions that threaten their wellbeing and mental health. Many are displaced persons who are victims of (a) wars, oppression and widespread violence, and natural disasters in their countries of origin; (b) traumatic experiences, loss of home and loved ones, and extreme violence during transit to safe places; and (c) victims of prejudice and discrimination in places of settlement or their own countries of residence. Further, autochthonous ethnic minorities (e.g., Roma) and indigenous minorities (e.g., Native-Americans, aborigines) are at extreme risk of vulnerability. Extreme vulnerable social, economic, and environmental conditions, which affect mental health, are suffered by ethnic minorities who are displaced and trapped in their homeland without resources and opportunities to pursue and enjoy a good and dignified life. Particularly vulnerable are those who suffer added risks due to the intersection of other psychosocial determinants of vulnerability such as children and the elderly, women and poor families, LGBTQIA+, stigmatized groups (e.g., sex workers, trafficked women), and people with disabilities.

However, ethnic and oppressed minorities, like any human group, have an immense capacity to resist and overcome oppressive and unfair living conditions, developing a critical vision of justice, building niches, and developing practices to protect, resist, and overcome the conditions of inequality according to their values, traditions, culture, social networks, and other ethnic strengths. Community-based approaches to research in which different disciplines work collaboratively within communities, hand in hand with community stakeholders, can provide safe spaces from which to promote mental health justice. This will contribute significantly to the development of the understanding of the mental health of ethnic minorities.

This Special Issue seeks to create a critical space to explore ethnic discrimination and racism as a crosscutting issue with mental health and wellbeing, to understand the causes of health, wellbeing and participation disparities, and to emphasize transformative and liberating approaches based on the strengths of communities, promoting their empowerment while ensuring their recognition and influence in social and political spaces. Papers that address mental health and wellbeing outcomes for ethnic minorities from nonmedical perspectives and the impact of sociopolitical determinants through an intersectional lens and recognize discrimination and racism at multiple levels as determinants are welcome. We encourage the submission of empirical studies, community-based participatory action research experiences, international papers comparing the mental health outcomes and wellbeing of ethnic minorities, papers that focus on hard-to-reach ethnic minority populations (e.g., Roma, the poor, indigenous communities, refugees, displaced communities), successful case studies of actions or interventions, and conceptual papers that help to unpack mental health disparities or ethical discussions in conducting of research on mental health with ethnic minority populations.

Prof. Manuel Garcia-Ramirez
Prof. Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar
Dr. Marek Szilvasi
Guest Editors

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• mental health
• ethnicity
• intersectionality
• nonmedical perspective
• community
• minorities
• social and environmental determinants of health