Globalization and mental health: The impact of war and armed conflict on families

Globalization and armed conflict have created population shifts that displace people and families, bringing critical issues around humanitarian emergencies into our communities. More researchers have taken an interest in the global community, but there remains a paucity of mental health research on the problems of people in war-affected countries as well as countries that eventually house them.
In this dissertation, I evaluate the impact of armed conflict in developmental phases across the life course: childhood/adolescence, early adulthood (as new parents), and adulthood (after migrating to a host country). Using a mixed-methods approach, I aim to understand the effects of armed conflict on children, the intergenerational stress when they become adults and have children of their own, and the predictors of mental distress when survivors of torture migrate to a host country.
To demonstrate the complexity between individual mental health and the social context, the dissertation populations are a reflection of the true nature of globalization - in high and low income countries, with a lifespan lens, to provide a framework for a public health model that emphasizes globalization in mental distress. This more contextualized concept considers the importance of developmental stages and the influence of socio-cultural context on both the local perceptions of mental health and the social determinants of mental health at the family-, community-, and wider society- levels, which departs from a narrow biomedical approach focused on individual pathology.