Modernity, Urbanization, and Youth Mental Health Worldwide

Session 2: Young Adults

Abstract

A major current challenge is to holistically explore the determinants of psychosocial distress among young people undergoing the transition to urban life. The health of young people is a priority in modern societies where psychosocial distress can be linked to chronic unemployment, crime, and suicide, particularly among socially excluded and disadvantaged groups, such as the working class and ethnic minorities. However, the most detrimental aspects of modern lifestyles—such as individualism, consumerism, and chronic poverty—are spreading worldwide to varying degrees depending on each country’s level of industrialization. From this perspective, the goal of our international collaboration between France, South Africa, and Senegal is to provide new insights into the determinants of psychosocial distress among young people from socially disadvantaged urban areas, including both material aspects—such as chronic poverty—and relational aspects—such as individualism and social isolation. Rather than adopting a narrow conception of poverty, the key innovative approach of this collaboration is to examine all aspects of a “life of poverty”—including material, emotional, and social deprivations—that contribute to the development of psychosocial distress among young people living in socially excluded urban areas. Our project will be presented during this talk.

Emmanuel Cohen

Emmanuel Cohen is a biocultural anthropologist and tenured researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), based at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France (7206 “Eco-anthropology” Mixed Research Unit). His work focuses both on the biological adaptations of the body and on the varying sociocultural conceptions of the body among human populations undergoing ongoing lifestyle transitions caused by the phenomenon of urbanization. Taking a holistic approach, he focuses on the impact of urban transition—particularly the concurrent demographic, nutritional, and epidemiological transitions—on the health of African and Western populations undergoing this lifestyle shift. By integrating biological and sociocultural data, along with the use of mixed-methods approaches, he evaluates the adaptability of these populations to rapid urban expansion, which involves physical and sociocultural environmental changes such as increased access to high-calorie foods, a decrease in physical activity, and the development of more individualistic lifestyles. Collectively, these factors influence nutritional, epidemiological, and demographic dynamics, with varying manifestations depending on the multiple biocultural trajectories of populations.