The Relevance of Culture in Psychiatric Epidemiology

This ethnography demonstrates how culture affects the social distribution of mental health problems in Upper Lake Heights- a predominantly Black urban neighborhood in  the Midwestern United States. Although in some ways consistent with DSM-V categories, depression is mostly expressed in ways that are neither in the DSM nor operationalized in community surveys. 

 

Findings have implications for assessing the social epidemiology of depression, and are useful in informing the provision of culturally appropriate mental  health care.