Background

Mental Health and well-being is fundamental to good health and impacts on how we think and feel, what we do and how we relate to others.  It is interconnected with our physical health with poor physical health affecting our mental health and vice versa.

Between one in four to one in six adults will suffer from some form of mental illness over a lifetime, ranging from common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety to schizophrenia or bipolar affective disorder which affects less than 0.5% of the adult population.  Suicides account for 4,000-5,000 deaths per year with 333 occurring in East Midalnds in 2008 (Suicide in the East Midlands and England - an update, EMPHO (2010)).  The risk factors including beign male, living alone, experiencing abuse, unemployment, alcohol or drug misuse, and diagnosed mental illness.  However, as many as three quarters of the people who take their lives are not in contact with mental health services.

Mental disorder accounts for about 22.7% of ill health burden in the UK compared with for example 16.2% for Coronary Vascular Disease and it si the single largest cause of disability (Confident Communities, Brighter Futures, DH, 2010).  This is likely to rise the predicted increase in dementia occurs. Particular groups are at an increased risk of mental health difficulties:

• New parents/young single parents
• Children from low income households
• Looked after children
• People who are unemployed
• People who have suffered abuse
• People with drug and alcohol problems
• People who are homeless
• People from black and minority ethnic communities
• Refugees and asylum seekers
• People in the criminal justice system
• People with a learning disability
• Lesbians and gay men
• Carers
• Those experiencing isolation and social exclusion

The Foresight Project has produced a useful systems map which provides an overview of the accumultation of mental capital through the life journey.  It highlights the interrelationship of the enviornment, culture, and biology and lifestyle with people at different stages on their life journey.  It links life stages and environments with the acquisition, maintenance and decline of mental capital.  It helps to illustrate the risks and protective factors for mental health and wellbeing and positive and negative interventions.  It supports a whole systems lifespan approach to improving the mental health and well-being of the population and individuals at greater risk.  The model shown at www.foresight.gov.uk.

Part Two of the Strategy comprises the individual and summary action plans, which can be accessed using the links on the left.