Mental Illness And Poverty Essay

The money and mind both matters for healthy living and they are interrelated in many aspects. Millions of people spend the night without food, shelter, necessary clothing’s and health care due lack of adequate money. For centuries, people living in poverty, have the poorest overall health (Krieger et al., 1993) (Adler et al., 1994). It is not only related to physical health but also mental health (Belle, 1990) (Kuruvilla and Jacob, 2007) due to poorer coping styles, ongoing negative life-events, more exposure to stress and weaker social support (Turner and Lloyd, 1999). Poverty affects the way people feel and perceive the world. Moreover, People living in the lower socioeconomic status suffer from mental illness two to three times more than those in the higher socioeconomic status. …show more content…
Multiple biopsychosocial factors act together for the vulnerability and onset of disease. Among the socioeconomic factors poverty is related to a number of psychiatric illness such as schizophrenia (Read, 2010), depression (Mirowsky and Ross, 2001) (KIERNAN and MENSAH, 2009), substance abuse and suicide. The social and economic deprivation also make a long term negative effect on children’s cognitive skills and educational achievements (Rank et al., 1998). Though the people of low socioeconomic status suffer more in mental illness they have the least access to mental health facility as they live in peripheral and underprivileged area and lack money to visit a doctor. If they wish to visit the doctor they give up their work on that day that can force his family to spend next few days in empty stomach. Moreover, stigma related to mental health illness is more prevalent among