Health promotion:

Mental health is fundamental to good health and wellbeing and influences social and economic outcomes across an individual’s lifetime. Mental health outcomes and development goals are closely connected.

This WHO fact sheet Mental health promotion and protection gives an indication of some of the ways to promote mental health.

Please read this article entitled ‘A systematic review of the evidence for effectiveness of mental health promotion programmes in LMICs’ http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/835. It discusses some of the evidence behind health promotion programmes for children and adolescence which is a critical time for good mental health to be fostered as resilience, self esteem and coping skills can help prevent later mental illness. 

Epidemiology

Firstly in this section, the availability and weaknesses of epidemiological data must be acknowledged. The main impetus for global mental health was based on the evidence that LMICs had a very high prevalence of mental health disorders (many undiagnosed) and a high burden of disability as well as inequity of service provision. However there is insufficient data available for most of the world's population to be clear about regional and national gaps in many countries.

The next paper reviews the coverage and limitations in global epidemiological data for mental disorders and suggests strategies to strengthen the data. It is entitled, “Global Epidemiology of Mental Disorders: What Are We Missing?” It systematically reviewed available studies looking at depressive disorders; anxiety disorders; schizophrenia; bipolar disorder; eating disorders; childhood behavioural disorders (CBD) and autistic spectrum disorders (ASD).  It concludes: "Recent calls to action for global mental health were predicated on the high prevalence and disability of mental disorders. However, the global picture of disorders is inadequate for planning. Global data coverage is not commensurate with other important health problems, and for most of the world's population, mental disorders are invisible and remain a low priority." http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0065514

One of the major public-health burdens across all regions of the world is depression. It is strongly linked to adverse social and environmental factors. The following paper is a cross-national epidemiological research study. It investigates the prevalence of major depressive episodes in LMICs and investigates relevant demographic risk factors that are most strongly associated with depression. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/9/90

Other mental health disorders are also linked to depression such as dementia. The following cross-sectional study places the risk of depression as 2.4 times more likely in people with dementia than age and sex matched controls in LMICs. http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/1/40.long

A major target to reduce future incidence of mental illness is to target mothers in the peri-natal period where the hormonal and psychological stresses of pregnancy can sow the seeds of mental illness in vulnerable people and increase the chance sof mental illness in their offspring as a result of reduced wellbeing of the mother-baby unit. The following systematic review discusses the prevalence and determinants of peri-natal disorders. https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/2/11-091850/en/

Last modified: Monday, 16 November 2020, 4:34 AM