title: Cultural diversity and mental health.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Cultural diversity and its impact on mental health has become an increasingly important issue in a globalised world where the interactions between cultures continue to grow exponentially. This paper presents critical areas in which culture impacts on mental health, such as how health and illness are perceived, coping styles, treatment-seeking patterns, impacts of history, racism, bias and stereotyping, gender, family, stigma and discrimination.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  While cultural differences provide a number of challenges to mental health policy and practice they also provide a number of opportunities to work in unique and effective ways towards positive mental health. Ethno-specific approaches to mental health that incorporate traditional and community-based systems can provide new avenues for working with culturally diverse populations.
authors.affiliation: Course Coordinator, Social Work and Human Services, James Cook University, Cairns, QLD, Australia narayan.gopalkrishnan@jcu.edu.au.
authors.forename: Narayan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gopalkrishnan
authors.affiliation: Pro Vice-Chancellor, Torrens University, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
authors.forename: Hurriyet
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Babacan
mesh_terms: D018864:Cultural Diversity; D065246:Culturally Competent Care; D006801:Humans; D008603:Mental Health
keywords: cultural diversity; culture; mental health; racism; stigma