[When does a social determinant become 'new'? A social psychiatry perspective]

Over the past decade, interest has grown in a range of phenomena described as new determinants of mental health, including climate crisis, digital hyperconnectivity, minority stress experienced by LGBTQIA+ people, economic precarity, migration and loneliness. This paper argues that these phenomena are not 'new' in the same sense. Some reflect genuinely new exposures, others represent historical transformations of well-established social determinants, while others become visible through changes in theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Contemporary social psychiatry offers several conceptual and methodological tools (e.g., structural stigma, Mendelian randomisation studies on poverty and mental illness, and social inclusion research) which can be used to develop a critical reading of the current literature. Distinguishing different forms of novelty may help to clarify how epidemiological research constructs its objects of inquiry and how social psychiatry interprets contemporary social change. A critical reading of the novelty of social determinants may also help focus on the practical implications of studying them. From a public mental health perspective, the task of social psychiatry is not simply to identify new determinants, but to understand how changing social conditions may produce and distribute mental suffering or reduce it.