Essay On Mental Health

Mental and Emotional Health falls in public health due to the amount of people it affects. LaVeists’ Chapter 5: “Mental Health,” and LaVeists’ Chapter 11: “American Indian and Alaska Native Health Issues” along with Breslaus’ “Lifetime risk and persistence of psychiatric disorders across ethnic groups in the United States” and James’ “John Henryism and the health of African-Americans” all express different ways in which mental and emotional health is discussed. From the overall thesis of these readings, the reader is able to determine how we think of health and illness within public health. In LaVeists’ writing we can see just how much health and illness can affect ones social experiences. LaVeists’ writing, in particular, was effective in

Mental health and even emotional health is a topic worth learning about. Not only is mental and emotional health something to take seriously, but also we need to know how this deals with public health as well as within different communities and race or ethnic groups. According to LaVeist on page 85, “Mental health problems are signs or symptoms of insufficient intensity or duration to meet the criteria for any mental disorder…” (LaVeist 85). There are most prevalent mental disorders in the United States. Mood disorders, psychotic disorders: Schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, childhood disorders and cognitive disorders: Alzheimer’s disease are a few of these most prevalent disorders within the United States. The impact of mental health on society is often overlooked. Although overlooked, mental health disparities do exist within racial/ethnic disparities. Culture-bound syndromes and idioms of distress also play an important role in understanding minority health. In Chapter 11, this chapter provides an overview of the different health issues present within the American Indian and Alaska Native population. Although most of this population lives on tribal lands, there are still some who live in urban areas. Major health risks’ keeping them from health access is poverty and low socioeconomic status and

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “Within a given year about 22.1 percent of Americans age eighteen or older suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder. This translates into roughly forty-four million people- one-fifth of the U.S. population” (LaVeist 87). Who would have thought that “forty-four million people” within the United States would have mental disorders? I feel that may be true because we never know just how different everyone is until we get to know him or her as he or she open up to us, but even then who are they to just outright say, “Yeah, by the way, I have a mental disorder”. It just comes to show that we cannot judge anyone else until we step inside his or her shoes. Some of these mental disorders we are not aware of while others are present throughout time as we begin to learn about them. As I was reading further into this chapter I happened to read about somatization. Already having some information on this topic already, I loved how I could expand it and continue to grow more. Now to me, “somatization” is almost as if one is fudging their symptoms in order for someone else to feel sorry for them when in fact these symptoms may be real for the person but there is no physical evidence of anything happening to them. It’s almost as if the pain was “all in ones head”. This “somatization” I feel takes place within any race and ethnic groups