Social economic inequalities and mental health II. Methodological aspects and literature review

Abstract

SummaryObjective - This study provides a framework for mental health inequalities beginners. It describes the methods used to measure socio economic inequalities and the inter-relations with different aspects of mental health: residence, mental health services organisation and main diagnostic categories. Method - Literature electronic-search on Medline, Psyclit, Econlit, Social Science Index and SocioSearch usingand relating the key-words inequalities, deprivation, poverty, socio-economic status, social class, occupational class, mental health for the period 1965-2002 (June). The articles selected were integrated with manual search (publications of the same authors, cross-references, working documents and reports of international andregional organisations). Results - Inequality is not an absolute concept and, mainly, it has been changing during the last years. For example, the integration and re-definition of variables that capture, in simple indices, a complex reality; the accent on social more than on economic aspects; the geo-validity and time-reference of the inequality's indices. Moreover, the inequalities could be the result of individual preferences, in this case, the social selectionand social causation issues will raise the suitability for a public intervention. Conclusions - Up to now, research has been mainly concentrated in describing and measuring health inequalities. For designing effective interventions, policy makers need to ground decisions on health-socioeconomic inequalities explanatory models.Declaration of Interestthis work was partly funded by the Department of the Public Health Sciences “G. Sanarelli” of the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and the Department of Medicine and Public Health of the University of Verona.