Yoga as salutogenic health promotion across displacement contexts: a culturally responsive public mental health synthesis.

BACKGROUND: Global displacement is a major public mental health concern shaped by conflict, protracted geopolitical instability, disrupted social worlds, and structural inequities. Yoga is increasingly discussed within health promotion as a potentially accessible and adaptable practice. However, much of the existing literature has prioritized symptom-based outcomes and has rarely been situated within displacement-informed public mental health frameworks attentive to structural vulnerability, cultural heterogeneity, and ethical implementation conditions. METHODS: This study undertakes a structured narrative synthesis of interdisciplinary literature spanning yoga-related practices, psychosocial wellbeing, salutogenic health promotion, public mental health, displacement, and culturally responsive care. Searches were conducted in MEDLINE via PubMed, Scopus, and PsycINFO, supplemented by backward and forward citation tracking of relevant reviews, humanitarian frameworks, and foundational theoretical works. Contemporary sources published between 2000 and 2025 were prioritized for literature addressing yoga, psychosocial wellbeing and public mental health. Seminal theoretical, methodological and policy sources published before 2000 were purposefully retained where they provided essential conceptual or methodological foundations for the synthesis. A final analytical corpus of 32 sources informed the synthesis, comprising empirical studies, systematic reviews, theoretical texts, and policy documents directly relevant to the conceptual framework. Additional literature informed background scoping and conceptual development but was not incorporated into the final analytical corpus. Yoga is conceptualized here as a heterogeneous practice category comprising contextually adapted combinations of movement, breath regulation, attentional practices, and optional contemplative elements, rather than as a singular intervention model. Sources were examined using iterative thematic analysis and conceptual mapping to identify explanatory mechanisms, contextual moderators, and ethical boundary conditions relevant to displacement contexts. RESULTS: Three interrelated salutogenic pathways are identified: embodied self-regulation and perceived manageability under chronic stress; coherence, meaning, and purpose in disrupted lifeworlds; and social connectedness through community-based participation. These pathways are conceptualized as context-dependent processes shaped by cultural congruence, structural conditions, delivery modalities, safeguarding arrangements, and participant-defined interpretations of practice. CONCLUSION: Situating yoga within a salutogenic and culturally responsive public mental health framework clarifies how it may be interpreted as a preventive and community-oriented psychosocial resource within displacement contexts. The synthesis foregrounds ethical boundary conditions, including risks of cultural essentialism, depoliticization, individualizing structurally produced distress, and inadvertent harm. The framework is theory-generating and intended to inform empirically grounded research, context-sensitive implementation, and policy deliberation, rather than to assert generalized effectiveness.