This chapter addresses the needs for preventive measures to improve the unfair—and avoidable—living and working conditions that produce increased rates of mental disorders among poor workers, women, immigrants, and racial and ethnic minorities. It also addressees treatment to narrow persistent mental health disparities by providing high-quality mental health services and psychiatric care. It discusses mental illness in a social justice context; the association between social stratification and mental health; specific dimensions of social injustice that implicate unequal power relations as a determinant of mental health disparities and mental health services and as a source of social injustice; and what needs to be done to achieve a more equal society that will reduce disparities in mental health outcomes. It recommends an action agenda that includes reframing issues of mental health among deprived and victimized populations to include civil rights and human rights as well as a public health approach. A text box describes the opioid crisis in the United States.
