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| Summary |
A review of findings that help shed light on the mental health status and treatment needs of the world's estimated 5,000-6,000 groups of indigenous peoples. Noting that indigenous peoples are among the poorest in the world, the report explores the typical social and cultural conditions that give rise to distress in marginalized populations and relates this distress to the development of mental health problems.
The report opens with a discussion of various definitions of "indigenous", underscoring the importance of self-identification through cultural and historical distinctiveness and the sense of marginality, whereby groups are treated as outsiders and often as inferiors. Methodological problems are addressed in the next section, which considers the complex interactions between sociocultural environments and mental health. The example of depression among American Indians is used to underscore the difficulty of applying standard diagnostic concepts to the mental health problems of indigenous peoples. Against this background, the report reviews the evidence of specific mental health problems in indigenous peoples in Central and South America, North America, Australia, the Pacific Islands, and Asia. Main problems identified include depressive disorders, substance abuse, suicide, domestic violence, and child abuse. The final section focuses on the challenge of finding culturally appropriate treatments for individuals while also addressing the social conditions that engender distress. |
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