Urbanization and Mental

Health

By
Sufyen Chaudhary
AU180184
Abstract
One of the causes and symptoms of Urbanization is the rising population all over the world. By
the end of 2025, cities will be home to the majority of the world's population. Demographers,
sociologists, biologists, and politicians are all paying attention to this paradigm shift in human
population dynamics. Urbanization carries with it a distinct combination of benefits and
drawbacks. Urbanization has an impact on the entire population, particularly the most vulnerable
members of society, such as the elderly, children and adolescents, and women. Urbanization has
led to an added poverty. Poverty and mental health has an multidimensional relationship.

This paper will study the impact of these aspects of urbanization on mental health of people,
focusing on south-asia region. The paper will discuss the causes and the results in detail, as well.
Methodology
The research methodology used in this paper is qualitative. Research by other scientists,
doctors and mental health experts have contributed in this paper in the form of their
primary research, statistics etc.
This paper required reading majorly into the primary literature by the same and some of
the reports and surveys held by the government and private institutions of the concerned
countries.
Introduction
● Rapid, sometimes uncontrolled urban growth, on the other hand, is frequently linked
to poverty, environmental degradation, and population demands that exceed service
capacity.
● Human health is jeopardised as a result of these circumstances. In most parts of the
world, reliable urban health statistics are scarce. Even rarer are disaggregated intra-
urban health statistics, i.e., data for distinct locations within a city.
● Urbanization has brought with it its own set of mental health and well-being issues.
Cities are becoming more varied in their population, owing to higher speed and lower
costs of communication and transportation.
The impact of urbanization
● It is frequently questioned whether the rising volume and proportion of cities are
outstripping human capacity to live in a secure environment with mutual support and
care.
● Some argue that the sheer magnitude of metropolitan life forces individuals to give up
their individual identities in favour of anonymity, apathy, and narrow self-interest.
● Multiculturalism in today's cities promotes greater tolerance, a higher quality of life, and
sociocultural stimulation; but, it also promotes increasing social tensions, interethnic
competition, and cultural disputes, all of which have mental health implications.
● Psychoses, depression, sociopathy, substance abuse, alcoholism, criminality, delinquency, vandalism,
family dissolution, and estrangement are only a few of the diseases and deficiencies linked to
urbanisation. Such unfavourable consequences frequently lead to irrational behaviour, which might
lead to communal violence.
● Behavior limitations that are practised or enforced on urban residents have a negative influence. If a
person's behaviour is excessively suppressive, he or she may develop a sense of powerlessness, which
can lead to stress-related diseases.
● The number of people migrating to cities has risen considerably in recent decades. Most migrants are
from rural areas, and their mental health values, beliefs, and expectations are typically considerably
different from those they find in their new region.
● People from rural areas have often faced years of isolation, lack of technological
connectivity, bad health, and poverty, unemployment and no proper housing.
● They must acculturate and adjust not merely to a new and difficult urban
environment, but also to new and different systems of symbols, meanings, and
customs.
● Many of the social processes associated with urbanisation, including rivalry, class
warfare, accommodation, and assimilation, have been linked to social deviance.
The condition in South Asia
● South Asia is the world's most densely inhabited and impoverished region. It is
confronted with significant social, economic, and health issues, including
widespread inequality, violence, political instability, and a scarcity of resources.
● These countries have a higher disease burden and a primary health-care delivery
system that is already strained. They are also afflicted by a lack of public
knowledge, stigma connected with mental illness, poverty, and illiteracy.
● Both the physician and the patient are under enormous strain as a result of rapid
urbanisation. In crowded clinics, maintaining a healthy doctor-patient relationship
becomes nearly impossible.
Accurate diagnosis and good follow-up are nearly impossible to achieve due to the
enormous number of patients, time restrictions, and wide spectrum of diseases. As a
result, there are many clinical errors and unnecessary diagnostic testing.
Conclusion
● Mental illness is a developing problem that requires immediate response. To effectively
address the problem of mental illness, a thorough understanding of poverty is essential,
taking into consideration both individual and social variables.
● This strategy is consistent with current urban health research, which implies that an
integrated approach that recognises the complexity of urban health challenges is the
way to go.
● The governments of these countries should be encouraged to adopt sound mental
health policies, to allocate budgets based on a comprehensive assessment of morbidity
and the cost of illnesses to society, to tailor policies to the needs of various populations,
and to maximise the use of locally available resources.
● Urbanization isn't entirely good or negative. It's probably safe to conclude that
urbanisation is propelling the economy of all South Asian countries forward,
allowing them to grow from strength to strength. "No country in the industrial age
has ever achieved considerable economic growth without urbanisation," according
to the UNFPA research.
References

● Trivedi, J., Sareen, H., & Dhyani, M. (2008). Rapid urbanization - Its impact on mental health: A South

Asian perspective. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 50(3), 161. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5545.43623

● Blue, I. (2019). Urbanization and mental health in developing countries. PubMed.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12291948/

● Ruiz-Grosso, P. (2019). Depressive Mood Among Within-Country Migrants in Periurban Shantytowns of

Lima, Peru. PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25367530/

Thank You