Social epidemiology of mental disorders. A review of Latin-American studies

This paper reviews the literature about the relationships between cultural change and psychopathology produced by Latin American researchers. With the analysis of 22 epidemiological studies, the author shows how culture has been traditionally viewed by social psychiatric research in Latin America as an independent variable associated with the prevalence of mental disorders. Two basic approaches have been analyzed: one of anthropological origin and the other based on sociological explanations. The hypotheses of cultural shock, stress of acculturation and cultural marginalization belong to the first approach, while the second one is manifested by the notions of urban stress, life change, social support and goal-striving stress. Methodological issues were brought about to evaluate the results on the association of cultural processes and psychopathology available in contemporary socio-psychiatric research in Latin America.