Global Psychiatric Epidemiology
This chapter offers an introduction to and discussion of the basic principles, concepts, and challenges of global psychiatric epidemiology, including the classification of mental illness, cultural concepts of distress, and the current understanding of global epidemiology and its limitations. The authors discuss how practitioners can use this information to improve their awareness of how their personal backgrounds and professional training impact their classification, understanding, and treatment of mental illness, and how they can take actions toward improving their cultural competence and ultimately improving patient relationships and care management. This discussion focuses primarily on the challenge of understanding global epidemiology through the lens of biomedical diagnostic classification systems, and on the importance of understanding how culture and society affect our knowledge of and approach to the diagnosis and treatment of illness.