Global Mental Health

Book excerpt: This international survey defines mental health as a basic human right, and tracks the emergence of mental health prevention and promotion as a global priority. Locating mental illness within a cycle of negative causes and effects affecting human quality of life, the editors identify modern policy barriers to promotion/prevention initiatives, particularly the favoring of the biomedical health model by major stakeholders. The book’s selection of successful programs from diverse countries displays a lifespan approach, emphasizing the centrality of interdisciplinary educational settings in providing primary and secondary prevention and promotion interventions, and the ongoing fight against missing financial investigations, discrimination and stigma. Together, these papers make a forceful argument for rights- based responses to worldwide mental health needs as part of the commitment toward global human rights and long-term development goals. Included in the coverage: · Mental health priorities around the world. · Social determinants of mental health. · Mental health and stigma: aspects of anti-stigma interventions. · Promoting social and emotional wellbeing and responding to mental health problems in schools. · The promotion and delivery of mental health services in primary care settings. · Economic evaluation of mental health promotion and mental illness prevention. Bringing to the fore public health concerns that are too often marginalized, Global Mental Health is necessary reading for health professionals, health and clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, medical sociologists, and policymakers.