Mental Health in South America
When someone gets a broken bone or develops diabetes or cancer, it is obviously taken seriously by medical professionals, friends and family and treatment is encouraged and given. So why are mental disorders often denied the same level of concern? Mental illness is serious, and thousands of people commit suicide every year because of undiagnosed or improperly treated mental health disorders. In fact, an estimated 63,000 people commit suicide every year in the Americas alone (Cruz). There needs to be a serious change in the way the government treats those with these health problems and drastic action should be taken because death by suicide is completely preventable, yet it takes so many lives every year. There …show more content…
Six studies done in Africa (Zimbabwe, Lesotho), Asia, (Indonesia and Pakistan) and Latin America (Brazil and Chile) showed a direct correlation between poverty and mental health problems (World Health Organization). Poor people are at more likely to suffer from depression due to the hardships they face because of their poverty and their lack of adequate care (Cruz). Paulo Rossi Menezes (Poor Mental Health), who is a professor of medicine at the University of Sao Paulo, expresses that the two are closely linked: “There is a clear relationship between standard of living and common mental disorders.” This ties poverty into the issue more directly as the research shows that those in impoverished countries are more likely to develop a mental illness that often goes untreated (Mental Health in Developing Countries). So to solve the issues of mental health, poverty needs to be seriously addressed as well. The two problems are directly linked, so there cannot be much change to the treatment of mental health in developing countries if those countries are struggling to even feed their people, or give them clean water to
When someone gets a broken bone or develops diabetes or cancer, it is obviously taken seriously by medical professionals, friends and family and treatment is encouraged and given. So why are mental disorders often denied the same level of concern? Mental illness is serious, and thousands of people commit suicide every year because of undiagnosed or improperly treated mental health disorders. In fact, an estimated 63,000 people commit suicide every year in the Americas alone (Cruz). There needs to be a serious change in the way the government treats those with these health problems and drastic action should be taken because death by suicide is completely preventable, yet it takes so many lives every year. There …show more content…
Six studies done in Africa (Zimbabwe, Lesotho), Asia, (Indonesia and Pakistan) and Latin America (Brazil and Chile) showed a direct correlation between poverty and mental health problems (World Health Organization). Poor people are at more likely to suffer from depression due to the hardships they face because of their poverty and their lack of adequate care (Cruz). Paulo Rossi Menezes (Poor Mental Health), who is a professor of medicine at the University of Sao Paulo, expresses that the two are closely linked: “There is a clear relationship between standard of living and common mental disorders.” This ties poverty into the issue more directly as the research shows that those in impoverished countries are more likely to develop a mental illness that often goes untreated (Mental Health in Developing Countries). So to solve the issues of mental health, poverty needs to be seriously addressed as well. The two problems are directly linked, so there cannot be much change to the treatment of mental health in developing countries if those countries are struggling to even feed their people, or give them clean water to