Key facts
- Mental health has intrinsic and fundamental value and is an integral part of our overall well-being.
- Mental health is affected by a complex interaction between individual, social and structural stresses and vulnerabilities.
- The need for action on mental health is self-evident and urgent.
- There are affordable, effective and feasible strategies to promote, protect and restore mental health.
Concepts related to mental health
Mental health is a state of psychological well-being that enables a person to cope with life's stresses, fulfill their potential, learn and work well, and contribute to their community. It is an integral part of the health and well-being that underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, establish relationships and shape the world in which we live. Mental health is a basic human right. It is crucial to personal, community and socio-economic development.
Mental health is not limited to the absence of psychological disorders. They are part of a complex continuum, different for each person, characterized by varying degrees of difficulty and distress, and with potentially very different social and clinical outcomes.
Mental ill health includes psychological disorders and psychosocial disabilities, as well as other psychological conditions associated with severe distress, poor functioning, or risk of self-harm. People with mental health conditions are likely to suffer from low levels of psychological well-being, but this does not always or necessarily happen.
Determinants of mental health
A combination of multiple individual, social and structural determinants may exist throughout our lifespan to protect or undermine our mental health and change our position on the mental health continuum.
Individual psychological and biological factors such as emotional skills, substance abuse, and genetics can make individuals more vulnerable to mental health problems.
Exposure to unfavorable social, economic, geopolitical and environmental conditions – including poverty, violence, inequality and environmental deprivation – increases individuals’ risk of mental health conditions.
Risks can appear at any stage of life, but those that occur during sensitive periods of development, particularly during early childhood, are particularly harmful. For example, it is known that harsh upbringing and corporal punishment undermine children's health and that intimidation is a major risk factor for mental ill-health.
Likewise, there are protective factors that arise throughout our lifespan and enable our resilience to be strengthened, including our individual social and emotional skills and characteristics, as well as positive social interactions, good education, decent work, safe neighborhoods, community cohesion, and more.
Mental health risks and protective factors are evident in society at varying levels. Local threats increase risks to individuals, families and communities, while global threats increase risks to populations as a whole, and include economic recessions, disease outbreaks, humanitarian emergencies, forced displacement and the growing climate crisis.
Each risk factor and each protective factor has limited predictive power. Most individuals do not develop mental health problems despite being exposed to a risk factor, while many individuals develop them despite not being exposed to any known risk factor. It is the determinants of mental health that interact with each other that enhance or undermine mental health.
Promoting mental health and preventing psychological disorders
Interventions in the field of mental health promotion and prevention of mental disorders aim to identify the individual, social and structural determinants of mental health, and then intervene to reduce risks, build resilience and create supportive environments for mental health. Interventions can be tailored to individuals, specific groups, or entire populations.
Reshaping the determinants of mental health often requires action that extends beyond the health sector, and therefore programs to promote mental health and prevent mental disorders should include the sectors of education, employment, justice, transportation, environment, housing and social care. The health sector can make a significant contribution by integrating promotion and prevention efforts into health services. Calling for, initiating, and facilitating multi-sectoral cooperation and coordination when necessary.
Suicide prevention is a global priority and is included in the Sustainable Development Goals. Significant progress can be made in this area by restricting access to suicide methods, offering responsible suicide information, adolescent social and emotional learning, and early intervention. Banning the use of highly hazardous pesticides is a particularly inexpensive and cost-effective intervention to reduce suicide rates.
Promoting mental health in children and adolescents is another priority that can be achieved through policies and laws that promote and protect mental health, by supporting caregivers in providing care during the upbringing stage, implementing school programs, and improving the quality of community and electronic environments. School-based social and emotional learning programs are among the most effective strategies for promoting mental health for countries of all income levels.
Promoting and protecting mental health in the workplace is an area of increasing interest and can be supported through legislation and regulations, organizational strategies, manager training and worker interventions.
Mental health care and treatment
In the context of national efforts to promote mental health, it is essential to protect and promote everyone's psychological well-being, but also to meet the needs of people with mental health conditions.
This should be done within the framework of community mental health care, which is easier to access and accept than institutional care, which helps prevent human rights violations and achieves better recovery outcomes for people with mental health conditions. Community mental health care should be provided through a network of interconnected services that include:
- Mental health services that are integrated into general health care, usually in general hospitals and through task-sharing with non-specialist providers in the primary health care sector;
- Community mental health services which may include community mental health centers and teams, psychosocial rehabilitation, peer support services, and supported living services;
- Services that provide mental health care within social services and non-health contexts, such as child protection services, school health services, and prison services.
The large gap in care for common mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety means that countries must find innovative ways to diversify and expand care for people with these conditions, for example through lay counseling or digital self-help.