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Positive mental health promotion, health equity and public health

Positive mental health promotion, health equity and public health

By Dianne Oickle (she/her) Dianne Oickle (she/her) on January 24, 2020

In this blog post, Knowledge Translation Specialist Dianne Oickle discusses new and past NCCDH resources that support action on health equity in relation to promote positive mental health.


 

Social determinants of health (SDH) intersect to influence health and health equity at individual, family, community and population levels; in this way, the relationship between health equity and mental health is symbiotic. More specifically, social and structural inequities amplify languishing mental health and, conversely, poor mental health can intensify and worsen the inequities experienced.

Health equity is an underlying value of public health core competencies. Beyond prevention efforts and early referral for treatment and services, a critical role for public health is to shape the social and structural factors that influence mental health inequities. Identifying and applying public health approaches to address SDH that promote positive mental health is necessary to improve population mental health outcomes for all people.

Resources to support action on health equity as a means to promote positive mental health     

The National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health (NCCDH) has recently worked with partners to: 

  • identify tools and evidence that highlight the link between mental health promotion and health equity;
  • explore public health strategies to address SDH and health equity that have implications for population mental health promotion; and
  • take a focused look at specific groups who are more likely to experience mental health inequities, and the role of public health to address the inequities.

NCCDH knowledge products to draw attention to addressing inequities as a public health strategy to promote positive mental health are available.  

Additional resources on mental health equity

The NCCDH Resource Library contains a number of resources related to mental health:

Future work

We continue to pay attention to and explore strategies to address SDH and health equity issues and their impact on omental health at a population level. 

We would love to hear from you with ideas ore examples we should explore. Let us know what you think by contacting Dianne Oickle, Knowledge Translation Specialist. 

 

Photo credit: Nathan Anderson

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Mental Health