Life-Course Perspectives on Mental Health
The cross-fertilization of the sociology of mental health and life-course perspectives is a valuable and increasingly investigated research topic. Mental health is dynamic rather than static, and life-course principles provide conceptual and methodological tools for understanding those dynamics. The purpose of this chapter is to review the state of the science with regard to mental health and illness in life-course perspective. It begins with a review of fundamental life-course principles, including examples of their utility for contributing to our understanding of mental health. A brief section summarizes methodological advances that permit analyses of long-term patterns of stability and change in mental health and its risk and protective factors. The core of this chapter reviews research on four key topics that combine life-course perspectives with major issues in the sociology of mental health. This chapter ends with brief recommendations for future research.
