scholarly journals Public mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic

Author(s):  
John R. Ashton

COVID-19 has presented society with a public health threat greater than any in living memory, leaving us to question almost every aspect of our society. An ever increasing concern is how we protect the global population from mental illness and whether public mental health policies can achieve this. In this article I reflect on the history of mental health service development, and furthermore on how COVID-19 might impact on the delivery of public mental health strategies into the future.

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  

Abstract The workshop has the aim to help developing and strengthening policies for Public Mental Health and support experience sharing platform for Public Mental Health policy development. Mental health policy defines the vision for the future mental health of the national population and internationally. The WHOs developed three recommendations for the development of mental health policy, strategic plans and for organizing services which are to deinstitutionalise mental health care; to integrate mental health into general health care; and to develop community mental health services. For each this aim a situational analysis and needs assessment is recommended as first step. Therefore, this workshop consists of four talks in the development of mental health policies at the regional and national level. First, the process of population consultations and participatory research is described (Felix Sisenop). Participatory research enables exchanging experiences, results and key challenges in Public Mental Health. Participatory research can contribute greatly in empowering people to discuss and deal with mental health issues and therefore is a step towards a more involved and active general public. Second, a policy development at the regional level is described (Elvira Mauz). On behalf of the federal ministry of health the Robert Koch Institute as the German public health institute is currently developing a concept for a national Mental Health Surveillance (MHS). In the talk objectives, framework model and work processes are presented. The MHS should systematically gather, process and analyze primary and secondary data, thus an integrating and monitoring system is working. Third, the Public Mental Health policy in Malta will be described (John Cachia) Over the last 7 years CMH Malta developed a strategic framework for the mental health with the input of patients, families, service providers, NGOs and civil society. The Maltese National Mental Health Strategy 2020-2030 was published in July 2019. This strategy will be described in the Talk. Fourth presenter (Ignas Rubikas) will introduce the national perspective on development of Lithuanian mental health policy addressing major public mental health challenges of suicide prevention, alcohol control policies and mental health promotion in a broader context of national mental health care. Key messages Participatory research in Public Mental Health is an approach to involve the population in policy development. Development of mental health policies can benefit from sharing experiences and lessons learned on a national and regional levels.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Anne Aboaja ◽  
Alina Wahab ◽  
Yang Yang Cao ◽  
Marcelo O'Higgins ◽  
Julio Torales

Paraguay is a landlocked country in South America. It is a democratic low-middle-income nation, and the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare is responsible for its healthcare system. Mental health services receive just 1–2% of healthcare budgets, and there are only 1.6 psychiatrists per 100 000 inhabitants. There are insufficient resources to adequately assess and treat mental disorders in high-risk populations such as children, adolescents and prisoners. Despite several improvements to mental health policies within the past two decades, the nation still lacks a Mental Health Act and specific policies required to optimise the mental health of the population.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Sordan Borghi ◽  
Igor Euflauzino ◽  
Maria Alice Silva Ferraz de Araújo

Introduction: Brazilian’s history of psychiatric care is complex and has some dark periods, but the country managed to get international recognition for its mental health policies in the last years. Those have been currently suffering setbacks. Purpose: Review the historical context of mental health in Brazil, assessing the changes made after 2016, and carry out a critical analysis of the current inclination. Methodology: literature and narrative review using official governmental documents. Results and Discussion: Through its history, Brazil’s had ups and downs in the care of mental health patients. After almost 30 years of policies that are centered around the individual, and not only the individual’s disease, the hospitalocentric model of care has been subtly making its comeback, together with normatives that revogue rights before acquired and corroborates with segregation of the mentally ill. Conclusions: The current changes in the Mental Health politics are not walking alongside the line with movements responsible for the implementation of a biopsychosocial care. It provokes and invites us to continue fighting for fair health programs and for the continuation of the Universal Health System


Author(s):  
FLÁVIA CRISTINA SILVEIRA LEMOS ◽  
BRUNO JÁY MERCÊS DE LIMA ◽  
DIEGO HENRIQUE DA SILVA TRUJILLO ◽  
ADIVAN JARBAS MOREIRA SOARES ◽  
THIAGO DA SILVA PINHEIRO ◽  
...  

  Este artigo busca traçar em formato de ensaio teórico uma trama histórica de alguns operadores analíticos dos procedimentos de psiquiatrização da sociedade e da medicalização dos corpos por meio de práticas sociais normalizadoras e disciplinares. Pensar estes acontecimentos e como são interrogados e trabalhados por Michel Foucault é uma proposta importante e nos auxilia a fazer perguntas a respeito do presente na medida em que diversas análises permitem correlações com a atualidade vivida e, assim, possibilita problematizar a considerável força da psiquiatria social hoje, reconfigurando as políticas de saúde mental disciplinadoras por um viés medicalizante e normalizador cada vez mais intenso em nome da defesa da sociedade. Logo, o presente texto contribui para diversas áreas de modo transdisciplinar no trabalho atento de desnaturalização histórica dos processos de medicalização e psiquiatrização da vida como norma disciplinar e social.Palavras-chave: História da psiquiatrização. Medicalização. Sociedade. Disciplina. Norma.Historical plots about psychiatry, discipline and medicalization in some of Michel Foucault's lensesABSTRACTThis article seeks to trace, in a theoretical essay format, a historial plots of some analytical operators of the psychiatric procedures of society and the medicalization of bodies through normalizing and disciplinary social practices. Thinking about these events and how they are interrogated and worked on by Michel Foucault is an important proposal and helps us to ask questions about the present, as several analyzes allow correlations with the current experience and, thus, make it possible to problematize the considerable strength of social psychiatry. today, reconfiguring disciplinary mental health policies through an increasingly intense medicalizing and normalizing bias in the name of defending society. Therefore, this text contributes to several areas in a transdisciplinary way in the careful work of historical denaturalization of the processes of medicalization and psychiatrization of life as a social and disciplinary norm.Keywords: History of psychiatrization. Medicalization. Society. Subject. Standard. 


Impact ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (6) ◽  
pp. 48-49
Author(s):  
Minori Utsunomiya

Early traditional mental health policies in Japan did not protect the rights of patients with mental illnesses, with public safety prioritised over human rights. The situation has since improved, but these early perceptions have impacted on current mental health policies in Japan. Dr Minori Utsunomiya, Aichi Prefectural University, Japan, believes past policies are the root of many challenges facing people with mental illness and she is exploring Japan's complex history of mental health and psychiatric care to shed light on the correlation between past and present mental health policies. Key foci for Utsunomiya are the Psychiatric Custody Law of 1900, the Psychiatric Hospital Law of 1919 and the Mental Health Act of 1950 and she is exploring these laws from two perspectives: pre-World War II to post-war continuity/discontinuity and the structure of acceptance and exclusion for people with mental illnesses. As such, Utsunomiya embarked on an exploration of the process of the revision and abolition of laws and deliberation with respect to bills related to mental illness, investigated the roles and functions of public psychiatric hospitals and analysed the causal relationship between the revision of laws related to mental illness and social incident.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0957154X2096617
Author(s):  
Merve Kardelen Bilir ◽  
Fatih Artvinli

This article offers a brief history and the evolution of mental health policy in Turkey. It aims to analyse how mental health policies were transformed and why certain policies were introduced at specific times. The modern history of mental health policy is divided into three periods: the institutionalization of psychiatry and hospital-based mental health services; the introduction of community-based mental healthcare services; and lastly, the policy of deinstitutionalization after the 1980s. These periods have been categorized in a way that basically coincides with Turkey’s modern political history.


Author(s):  
Sérgio Resende Carvalho ◽  
Henrique Sater de Andrade ◽  
Luana Marçon ◽  
Fabrício Donizete da Costa ◽  
Silvio Yasui

Here we present the last of a series of four interviews with English sociologist Nikolas Rose. We explore central aspects of the recently published work entitled “Our Psychiatric Future: politics of Mental Health policies”, which has as background issues and problems that we consider absolutely relevant for facing the complex and difficult challenges posed to the implementation of Brazilian Public Health system and to the reform of Mental Health in our country. In this interview, we seek to discuss with the author: psychiatry as a (bio)politics; the ‘epidemics’ of mental disorders’; the role and consequences of psychiatric diagnostic practice in defining what is defined as mental disorder or illness; the use and abuse of psychiatric drugs in the contemporary; strengths and weaknesses of discursive psychiatric practices in ‘developed’ countries; limits and possibilities of users’ participation in Mental Health.


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