This far-reaching volume analyzes the social, cultural, political, and economic factors contributing to mental health issues and shaping treatment options in the Asian and Pacific world. Multiple lenses examine complex experiences and needs in this vast region, identifying not only cultural issues at the individual and collective levels, but also the impacts of colonial history, effects of war and disasters, and the current climate of globalization on mental illness and its care. These concerns are located in the larger context of physical health and its determinants, worldwide goals such as reducing global poverty, and the evolving mental health response to meet rising challenges affecting the diverse populations of the region. Chapters focus on countries in East, Southeast, and South Asia plus Oceania and Australia, describing: · National history of psychiatry and its acceptance. · Present-day mental health practice and services. · Mental/physical health impact of recent social change. · Disparities in accessibility, service delivery, and quality of care. · Collaborations with indigenous and community approaches to healing. · Current mental health resources, the state of policy, and areas for intervention. A welcome addition to the global health literature, Mental Health in Asia and the Pacific brings historical depth and present-day insight to practitioners providing services in this diverse area of the world as well as researchers and policymakers studying the region.

Collects together data compiled from 177 World Health Organization Member States/Countries on mental health care. Coverage includes policies, plans and laws for mental health, human and financial resources available, what types of facilities providing care, and mental health programmes for prevention and promotion.

Following on the previous volume, Mental Health in Asia and the Pacific, which was co-edited with Milton Lewis, this book explores historical and contemporary developments in mental health in China and Chinese immigrant populations. It presents the development of mental health policies and services from the 19th Century until the present time, offering a clear view of the antecedents of today’s policies and practice. Chapters focus on traditional Chinese conceptions of mental illness, the development of the Chinese mental health system through the massive political, social, cultural and economic transformations in China from the late 19th Century to the present, and the mental health of Chinese immigrants in several countries with large Chinese populations. China’s international political and economic influence and its capabilities in mental health science and innovation have grown rapidly in recent decades. So has China’s engagement in international institutions, and in global economic and health development activities. Chinese immigrant communities are to be found in almost all countries all around the world. Readers of this book will gain an understanding of how historical, cultural, economic, social, and political contexts have influenced the development of mental health law, policies and services in China and how these contexts in migrant receiving countries shape the mental health of Chinese immigrants.

The mhGAP Intervention Guide (IG) is a clinical guide on mental neurological and substance use disorders for general health care workers who work in non-specialized health care settings particularly in low- and middle-income countries. These health care workers include general physicians family physicians nurses and clinical officers. The mhGAP programme provides a range of tools to support the work of health care providers as well as health policy makers and planners The proposed guide is an adaptation of the mhGAP Intervention Guide to be used in humanitarian settings. These settings include a broad range of acute and chronic emergency situations arising from armed conflicts natural disasters and industrial disasters and may include mass displacement of populations (eg refugees and/or internally displaced people).

The Asia-Pacific region has not only the greatest concentration of population but is, arguably, the future economic centre of the world. Epidemiological transition in the region is occurring much faster than it did in the West and many countries face the emerging problem of chronic diseases at the same time as they continue to grapple with communicable diseases. This book explores how disease patterns and health problems in Asia and the Pacific, and collective responses to them, have been shaped over time by cultural, economic, social, demographic, environmental and political factors. With fourteen chapters, each devoted to a country in the region, the authors take a comparative and historical approach to the evolution of public health and preventive medicine, and offer a broader understanding of the links in a globalizing world between health on the one hand and culture, economy, polity and society on the other. Public Health in Asia and the Pacific presents the importance of the non-medical context in the history of human disease, as well as the significance of disease in the larger histories of the region. It will appeal to scholars and policy makers in the fields of public health, the history of medicine, and those with a wider interest in the Asia-Pacific region.

Geographically and demographically Asia is a huge region with a large number of societies and cultures, each affected by their own unique problems including over-population, major natural disasters, poverty and changing social and economic factors. Inevitably this means that different mental health needs have developed across the region. Colonialism, globalization, industrialization and urbanization have brought major demographic and cultural shifts in the region but clinical mental health practices and services and societal attitudes to mental health issues vary enormously. This handbook surveys the state of the current psychiatric care field across the whole Asia-Pacific region. Focusing on individual countries, each chapter will include: A summary of factors affecting the practice and provision of psychiatric care, including cultural attitudes to mental health issues Coverage of the conceptualisation, causation and prevalence of mental health issues in society An overview of mental health care services and systems available and workforce training Coverage of country specific innovative practices and folk therapies As the first major reference work on psychiatric care in Asia this book is an essential resource for scholars and students researching mental health in Asia as well as psychiatrists and other mental health professionals working in the region.