The geography of mental health: an established field?

Abstract

Purpose of review 

The purpose of this review is to offer an outline introduction to a field of inquiry known as the geography of mental health (or mental health geographies). Since this is the first time the field has been reviewed in this journal, attention will be paid to the history of the field, not just recent findings.

Recent findings 

Research has chiefly, but not exclusively, tackled (i) the spatial epidemiology of mental ill-health and (ii) the changing locational associations of mental health care.

Summary 

This review has concentrated chiefly on contributions to this field of inquiry made by researchers with a background in the academic discipline of geography. While there are ‘geographical’ contributions made by workers from other disciplinary backgrounds, there is arguably something distinctive, particularly in the most recent scholarship, arising from a theorized sensitivity to the entangled relations of mental health, society, space and environment.