There are over 200 million international migrants, people who live in a country other than the one in which they were born, in the world today, the vast majority moving from middle-and low-income countries to high-income countries in North America, Europe and Oceania. Intra-national migrants, people who move large distances within the country in which they were born, may be an even larger population, with massive rural to urban migration continuing in many countries and a recent memory in most others. The chapters of this edited volume attempt a comprehensive overview of the many implications of these massive movements of people for population mental health and mental health treatment. The volume contains 26 chapters, divided into five major sections covering the epidemiology of migration and mental health, consequences of migration, challenges that migrations pose to mental healthcare systems, needs of special populations and several country-level case studies. The authors are with few exceptions non-researchers and the chapters are for the most part selective literature reviews that explicate concepts and highlight themes of interest. Although the content is not unavailable elsewhere, the book fills a niche by bringing together discussion of a broad range of topics of interest to practitioners and policy makers who work with migrant populations into a single volume.

The epidemiology chapters go into considerable depth in describing mental health concerns corresponding to the several stages of migration, from premigration experiences, the experience of transit, and experiences in the receiving country both in the short and long term. The papers take a broad view of migration, including epidemiological patterns that extend across generations of descendants of migrants born in the receiving countries. The careful delineation of the distinct factors affecting migrant populations at each stage of the migration process is a strength of the collection. The papers also take a broad view of mental health, with some chapters focusing on psychosis, others on common mental disorders and others on distress.