So this is a timely moment to reflect on one of the most pressing of those challenges – the fact that indigenous peoples are significantly more likely to experience mental health problems than majority populations.
The vulnerability of indigenous peoples in relation to mental ill-health was highlighted in a recent report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Dr. Darius Pūras. He emphasised how for indigenous peoples, the ‘political, economic and cultural structures’ that give rise to mental health problems can intersect in particularly harmful ways.
This attention to the political determinants of mental ill-health is forcefully expressed in Dr. Pūras’s summing up of the implications of his research: ‘measures to address inequality and discrimination would be far more effective in combatting mental illness than the emphasis over the past 30 years on medication and therapy.’
