Population Mental Health: Evidence, Policy, and Public Health Practice

Population Mental Health identifies the tools and strategies of public health practice ' surveillance and screening, early identification, preventive interventions, health promotion and community action ' and their application to twenty-first century public mental health policy and practice.Public health has been very successful in eradicating and controlling a host of diseases through immunization efforts, safer food practices, public health education and promotion, improved sanitation and water purification. The result has been a dramatic improvement in health and life expectancy. However, the huge impact that mental illnesses have on individuals and society as a whole has largely been overlooked by the discipline.This pioneering volume examines the evidence-base for incorporating mental health into the public health agenda by linking the available research on population-based mental health with public mental health policy and practice. Issues covered include:the influence of health and mental health policies on the care and well-being of individuals with mental illness and urban communities over the past fifty years the potential application of public health models of intervention in order to mitigate the progression toward mental disorders among populations at risk obstacles to adopting a public health orientation to mental health/mental illness in terms of public policy, mental health epidemiology, workforce challenges, and stigma the interconnectedness of both physical and mental disorders and how that relationship affects morbidity and mortality.Setting out a unique and innovative model for integrated public mental health care, this book will be of interest to academics and researchers in public health and mental health policy and practice.