Mental Health

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Mental health
Concepts in mental health
Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of
life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It is
an integral component of health and well-being that underpins our individual and collective
abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in. Mental health
is a basic human right. And it is crucial to personal, community and socio-economic
development.
Mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders. It exists on a complex
continuum, which is experienced differently from one person to the next, with varying
degrees of difficulty and distress and potentially very different social and clinical outcomes.
Mental health conditions include mental disorders and psychosocial disabilities as well as
other mental states associated with significant distress, impairment in functioning, or risk of
self-harm. People with mental health conditions are more likely to experience lower levels of
mental well-being, but this is not always or necessarily the case.
Determinants of mental health

Throughout our lives, multiple individual, social and structural determinants may combine to
protect or undermine our mental health and shift our position on the mental health
continuum.
Individual psychological and biological factors such as emotional skills, substance use and
genetics can make people more vulnerable to mental health problems.
Exposure to unfavorable social, economic, geopolitical and environmental circumstances –

including poverty, violence, inequality and environmental deprivation – also increases
people’s risk of experiencing mental health conditions.
Risks can manifest themselves at all stages of life, but those that occur during
developmentally sensitive periods, especially early childhood, are particularly detrimental.
For example, harsh parenting and physical punishment is known to undermine child health
and bullying is a leading risk factor for mental health conditions.
Protective factors similarly occur throughout our lives and serve to strengthen resilience.
They include our individual social and emotional skills and attributes as well as positive social
interactions, quality education, decent work, safe neighborhoods and community cohesion,
among others.
Mental health risks and protective factors can be found in society at different scales. Local
threats heighten risk for individuals, families and communities. Global threats heighten risk
for whole populations and include economic downturns, disease outbreaks, humanitarian
emergencies and forced displacement and the growing climate crisis.
Each single risk and protective factor has only limited predictive strength. Most people do not
develop a mental health condition despite exposure to a risk factor and many people with no
known risk factor still develop a mental health condition. Nonetheless, the interacting
determinants of mental health serve to enhance or undermine mental health.
Mental health promotion and prevention

Promotion and prevention interventions work by identifying the individual, social and
structural determinants of mental health, and then intervening to reduce risks, build
resilience and establish supportive environments for mental health. Interventions can be
designed for individuals, specific groups or whole populations.
Reshaping the determinants of mental health often requires action beyond the health sector
and so promotion and prevention programmes should involve the education, labour, justice,
transport, environment, housing, and welfare sectors. The health sector can contribute
significantly by embedding promotion and prevention efforts within health services; and by
advocating, initiating and, where appropriate, facilitating multisectoral collaboration and
coordination.
Suicide prevention is a global priority and included in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Much progress can be achieved by limiting access to means, responsible media reporting,
social and emotional learning for adolescents and early intervention. Banning highly
hazardous pesticides is a particularly inexpensive and cost–effective intervention for reducing
suicide rates.
Promoting child and adolescent mental health is another priority and can be achieved by
policies and laws that promote and protect mental health, supporting caregivers to provide
nurturing care, implementing school-based programmes and improving the quality of
community and online environments. School-based social and emotional learning
programmes are among the most effective promotion strategies for countries at all income
levels.
Promoting and protecting mental health at work is a growing area of interest and can be
supported through legislation and regulation, organizational strategies, manager training and
interventions for workers.
Mental health care and treatment
In the context of national efforts to strengthen mental health, it is vital to not only protect
and promote the mental well-being of all, but also to address the needs of people with mental
health conditions.
This should be done through community-based mental health care, which is more accessible
and acceptable than institutional care, helps prevent human rights violations and delivers
better recovery outcomes for people with mental health conditions. Community-based
mental health care should be provided through a network of interrelated services that
comprise:
mental health services that are integrated in general health care, typically in general hospitals
and through task-sharing with non-specialist care providers in primary health care;
community mental health services that may involve community mental health centers and
teams, psychosocial rehabilitation, peer support services and supported living services; and
services that deliver mental health care in social services and non-health settings, such as
child protection, school health services, and prisons.
The vast care gap for common mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety
means countries must also find innovative ways to diversify and scale up care for these
conditions, for example through non-specialist psychological counselling or digital self-help.
Source: who.int.com
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Reading: Identifying unknown words in a passage

Concepts in mental health

Determinants of mental health

Exposure to unfavorable social, economic, geopolitical and environmental circumstances –

Mental health promotion and prevention

No. Words Definition

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