Public Health, Occupational Health and Epidemiology Conference

Psychiatric health refers to one’s health and emotional, psychological, and social state of being. Stress, social relationships as well as decision-making are some of the areas where psychological well-being has an impact on thought patterns, emotions, and behaviors. Healthy minds are crucial at every age of human development including child development and adolescent development and are influenced by genetic, biological, environmental, and sociocultural factors.

Common mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, bipolar, and schizophrenia, affect all populations in society, and can greatly limit the functioning of the affected individual if not properly managed. Mental health is shunned in most communities due to social isolation this leads to the worsening of symptoms, and extra predicaments in romantic relationships, employment, and physical health complications. The best treatment of mental disorders entails a time-centered approach such that it is manageable to offer a cure while the symptoms are still underrepresented and enable persons with mental disorders to have meaningful lives.

Here I draw upon Maynard’s discussion of public health strategies for mental health to argue that such service provision is best characterized by its orientation to prevention and early intervention, as well as its commitment to providing service regardless of patients’ ability to pay. Mental health promotion and illness prevention strategies are embracing; education on mental health, counseling and other related services, and the use of community support systems. For example, settings such as schools, workplaces, parents, and caregivers have a role of supporting mental health, initiating ideas, and acting against mental health stigma.

The COVID-19 outbreak demonstrated the significance of mental health because emerging anxiety, depression, and stress-related disorders require strong mental health systems. Teletherapy and Mental Health apps have changed the ways people can try to take care of their mental health in isolation.

A mental healthcare model can accommodate social support, diet and exercise, and available treatment plans. Mental health needs to be viewed as an aspect of public health so that it can become possible for communities to minimize the impact of mental illnesses, foster strength, and thereby enhance the general well-being of communities.