[Poverty : cause or space for problems in mental health.]

The frequent association made in the academic press between poverty and minor and major mental health problems is unfounded. There is absolutely no proof that lack of revenue is the main cause of such a hardship. Poverty is first and foremost an area in society where mostly vulnerable groups congregate, particularly mothers of single-parent families, immigrants and refugees, the unemployed, as well as former psychiatric patients. Problems are also much more concentrated in poor districts with high-rise, multiple dwelling apartment buildings. On a different note, it appears that people with better personal resources occupy middle-class districts. Poverty is definitively not a source of psychological problems unless it is combined with such factors as social isolation, emigration, unemployment or an anomic district.