ABSTRACT
Poverty is a fundamentally important issue for the practice of social work. It underlies many of the social problems that social workers encounter on a daily basis. One such area is the quality of an individual’s mental health. This chapter is divided into three sections. First, the nature and scope of poverty in the United States are discussed. This includes ways of measuring and conceptualizing poverty, and an overview of the likelihood and prevalence of poverty in the United States. We then turn to a discussion of the relationship between poverty and mental health. The strength of the association between the two is first reviewed. Next, we take up the question of causality, that is, to what extent does poverty lead to a decline in mental health, and to what extent does compromised mental health lead to poverty? Finally, we explore some of the intrinsic aspects of poverty that are related to a deterioration of mental health.
