Akshat Patel* and Preksha Saparia
Living conditions play a crucial role in determining possibilities, long term health, wellbeing, and emotional and affective experiences. In a time when most of the world is rapidly urbanizing, there is growing interest in how mental health and urban environments interact, but not enough focus is given to how mental health is situated in space and time. Urban environments around the world are characterized by socio-economic inequality, which makes living conditions for some social groups, notably young people, extremely precarious. Young people are burdened by uncertain economic futures, and there are still many unmet needs for mental health services. The goal of this scoping review is to provide an interdisciplinary, worldwide understanding of how urban environments impact young people's mental health. Across a variety of scales, as well as to pinpoint elements that can improve youth mental health. In order to create an interpretive framework based on the viewpoints shared by young people, we aim to widen the focus of urban mental health research beyond the physical characteristics of metropolitan surroundings. We demonstrate how social theory ideas can be applied to create an integrative framework that emphasizes both the lived experiences of young people and the larger cultural and political dynamics of urban mental health.
