Managing mental health problems should incorporate factors beyond medicinal approaches. Our environment plays a major role in either assisting or hindering positive mental health. As such, architects can use design and construction to build environments that convey a feeling of comfort and security.
Full Answer
What is mental health?
Key facts Mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders. Mental health is an integral part of health; indeed, there is no health without mental health. Mental health is determined by a range of socioeconomic, biological and environmental factors.
Why is the environment so important to mental health?
An environment that respects and protects basic civil, political, socio-economic and cultural rights is fundamental to mental health. Without the security and freedom provided by these rights, it is difficult to maintain a high level of mental health.
What are the main areas of understanding about mental health?
The main areas from which counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists gain understanding about mental health are (Dasgupta, 2013): Spiritual – This approach explains who we are in the world and how we are to act. It also tells us what we can expect after death based on our actions.
Why is it important to care about mental health?
This is particularly important because mental illnesses cannot simply be ignored and left untreated — doing so significantly impacts a person’s quality of life and can cause severe distress and secondary health effects.
How does our environment impact our mental health?
Loud noises and larger crowds can be overwhelming, which increases cortisol levels and stress. Higher rates of pollution also affect mental health. Scott points to research that shows increased rates of depression in more polluted areas.
How are mental health and natural environment related?
Access to nature can have immensely positive effects on people's mental health, according to a growing body of evidence. Likewise, environmental degradation, including climate change and pollution, poses a serious threat to our emotional state and well-being.
How does social environment affect health?
How Can Social Environment Factors Affect Health? An individual's social environment can negatively affect a person's health leading to obesity, mental health problems, and a higher risk of diseases. Typically, those that are lower on the social ladder are twice as likely to develop a health condition.
What are Mental Health Theories?
It is a “coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation” (Dictionary.com, n.d.).
What are the different theories of mental health?
There are several mental health theories, but they all come from one of five schools of thought. They are behaviorism, biological, psychodynamic, cognitive, and humanistic. In recent years, there has been a move toward studying how people flourish. This is positive psychology.
What is biological mental health?
Biological – This is a medical model of treating mental disorders. The idea is that something physical is the cause of the mental illness. Symptoms are “outward signs of the inner physical disorder” (McLeod, 2018). Psychodynamic – Like behaviorism, psychodynamic therapists view behavior as a result of experiences.
What do counselors and therapists learn?
They learn how to use those theories to support their work with clients.
How many schools of thought are there for mental health?
There are five schools of thought that attempt to explain mental health. Many therapists and counselors operate from one or two of these. Theories guide the services and interactions therapists have with their clients. This is important to know because it can affect how well you and your therapist “click.”.
What is the meaning of biopsychosocial?
Biopsychosocial – The interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors explains mental illness.
What is psychological health?
Psychological (psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, existential/humanistic) – Mental health develops along an expected path. People try to adjust to their environment to survive within it. Problems arise when a person learns maladaptive strategies as a response to new situations.
What is mental health?
Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. Mental health is fundamental to our collective and individual ability as humans to think, emote, interact with each other, ...
How is mental health determined?
Mental health is determined by a range of socioeconomic, biological and environmental factors. Cost-effective public health and intersectoral strategies and interventions exist to promote, protect and restore mental health. Mental health is an integral and essential component of health. The WHO constitution states: "Health is a state ...
What should be considered in national mental health policies?
National mental health policies should be concerned both with mental disorders and, with broader issues that promote mental health. Mental health promotion should be mainstreamed into governmental and nongovernmental policies and programmes. In addition to the health sector, it is essential to involve the education, labour, justice, transport, environment, housing, and welfare sectors.
How can we improve mental health?
Specific ways to promote mental health include: 1 early childhood interventions (e.g. providing a stable environment that is sensitive to children’s health and nutritional needs, with protection from threats, opportunities for early learning, and interactions that are responsive, emotionally supportive and developmentally stimulating); 2 support to children (e.g. life skills programmes, child and youth development programmes); 3 socio-economic empowerment of women (e.g. improving access to education and microcredit schemes); 4 social support for elderly populations (e.g. befriending initiatives, community and day centres for the aged); 5 programmes targeted at vulnerable people, including minorities, indigenous people, migrants and people affected by conflicts and disasters (e.g. psycho-social interventions after disasters); 6 mental health promotional activities in schools (e.g. programmes involving supportive ecological changes in schools); 7 mental health interventions at work (e.g. stress prevention programmes); 8 housing policies (e.g. housing improvement); 9 ·violence prevention programmes (e.g. reducing availability of alcohol and access to arms); 10 community development programmes (e.g. integrated rural development); 11 poverty reduction and social protection for the poor; 12 anti-discrimination laws and campaigns; 13 promotion of the rights, opportunities and care of individuals with mental disorders.
What is early childhood intervention?
early childhood interventions (e.g. providing a stable environment that is sensitive to children’s health and nutritional needs, with protection from threats, opportunities for early learning, and interactions that are responsive, emotionally supportive and developmentally stimulating);
What is mental health promotion?
Mental health promotion involves actions that improve psychological well-being. This may involve creating an environment that supports mental health.
What are the factors that determine mental health?
Determinants of mental health. Multiple social, psychological, and biological factors determine the level of mental health of a person at any point of time. For example, violence and persistent socio-economic pressures are recognized risks to mental health. The clearest evidence is associated with sexual violence.
What is the role of the environment in mental health?
Our environment plays a major role in either assisting or hindering positive mental health. As such, architects can use design and construction to build environments that convey a feeling of comfort and security.
What is the importance of architectural design in mental health?
The importance of architectural design on mental health can be seen in the designs of modern mental health facilities, particularly within the psychiatric hospital system in North America.
What is the rapidly developing world of modern medicine?
The rapidly developing world of modern medicine has concurrently made great strides. Coupling advanced therapies with required medications, more patients than ever are able to return to their homes and community to live fulfilled lives. Both patients and health professionals benefit from the new and more informed design approach for our current-day psychiatric hospitals.
What are the factors that affect mental health?
However, mental illnesses and mental health in general are affected by the combination of biological and genetic factors, psychology, and society. This intersectionality is important, but the heavy influence of societal factors often goes ignored.
How do cultures differ in mental health?
Furthermore, cultures differ in the meaning and level of significance and concern they give to mental illness. Every culture has its own way of making sense of the highly subjective experience that is an understanding of one’s mental health. Each has its opinion on whether mental illness is real or imagined, an illness of the mind or ...
How does mental health relate to environmental factors?
It is well-documented that human mental health emerges from a complex interplay between genetic, psychological, lifestyle, and other factors. In addition, people are also exposed to numerous environments. These environmental exposures (e.g., green space, noise, air pollution, weather conditions, housing conditions) might trigger mental disorders or be protective factors, facilitating stress reduction, mental recovery, etc. [1,2]. In this special issue, “environmental exposure” is understood in the broadest sense, comprising natural (e.g., park, bodies of water, weather) [3], social (e.g., capital, cohesion) [4], and built environmental exposures (e.g., urbanicity, intersection density, land use mix) [5]. Although some environmental factors—e.g., air pollution and green space—have already received broad attention in scientific debates, others have received very little, resulting in a tentative and partly inconclusive understanding of the environment–mental health relationship.
How does mental health affect the world?
Mental illness contributes significantly to the global burden of mental disorders (i.e., 13% disability adjusted life-years lost) [6]. It is therefore important to grasp how and to what extent environmental exposures affect mental health outcomes. In the past year, 20% of all adults worldwide suffered from a mental disorder. Mental disorders have a lifetime prevalence of two out of seven adults and will continue to remain a leading cause of disease burden [7]. Such disorders have devastating consequences for people’s quality of life and represent striking challenges for health systems as a whole. Thus, the reduction of mental disorders is a health priority in both developed and developing countries.
Why is geographic context important in mental health?
The geographic context of individuals is a central construct in assessing the contribution of environmental exposures to people’s mental health [2]. While residential neighborhoods are frequently thought to represent an environmental context, this approach is increasingly critiqued because it assumes that people are immobile and exposed only to their residential neighborhoods. As this seems to be too restrictive an assumption, mobility-based environmental exposure assessments in mental health research have been put forward as methods that represent exposures more accurately. Such approaches highlight the importance of exposures that people experience throughout the day and over their lifetime [2].
How does culture affect mental health?
Here are four ways culture can impact mental health: 1 Cultural stigma. Every culture has a different way of looking at mental health. For many, there is growing stigma around mental health, and mental health challenges are considered a weakness and something to hide. This can make it harder for those struggling to talk openly and ask for help. 2 Understanding symptoms. Culture can influence how people describe and feel about their symptoms. It can affect whether someone chooses to recognize and talk about only physical symptoms, only emotional symptoms or both. 3 Community Support. Cultural factors can determine how much support someone gets from their family and community when it comes to mental health. Because of existing stigma, minorities are sometimes left to find mental health treatment and support alone. 4 Resources. When looking for mental health treatment, you want to talk to someone who understands your specific experiences and concerns. It can sometimes be difficult or time-consuming to find resources and treatment options that take into account specific cultures factors and needs.
Why is it important to understand the role culture plays in mental health care?
It’s important that we understand the role culture plays in mental health care so we can support our loved ones and encourage treatment when it’s needed most.
How can we help the mental health of minorities?
You can help address the mental health of minorities by understanding the role culture plays in mental health and by becoming trained to help those around you . Mental Health First Aid gives people the skills to identify signs of mental health and substance use challenges and action steps to take to help them get treatment.
Why are minorities left out of mental health?
Because of existing stigma, minorities are sometimes left to find mental health treatment and support alone. Resources. When looking for mental health treatment, you want to talk to someone who understands your specific experiences and concerns.
Do minorities get mental health care?
According to research published by The Commonwealth Fund, minorities in the United States are less likely to get mental health treatment or will wait until symptoms are severe before looking. In fact, only 66 percent of minority adults have a regular health care provider compared to 80 percent of white adults.
Is mental health a weakness?
Every culture has a different way of looking at mental health. For many, there is growing stigma around mental health, and mental health challenges are considered a weakness and something to hide. This can make it harder for those struggling to talk openly and ask for help. Understanding symptoms.
What are the factors that affect mental health?
Lack of self-care and/or relaxation. Overall health and well-being require a good balance of mental, physical, social, emotional, and spiritual health. Although mental illness itself is heritable, a wide variety of factors like genetics, economic, social, ...
What are the physical factors that contribute to mental illness?
Physical environmental factors contributing to mental illness are those that have the power to affect a person’s biology or neurochemistry, thereby increasing their chances of developing a disorder.
How many people suffer from mental illness?
In fact, data from the World Health Organization reveals that approximately one in four people worldwide will suffer from a mental illness at some point in their lives.
What are some examples of physical environmental factors?
In addition to poor nutrition, some other examples of physical environmental factors are: Sleep deprivation. Smoking. Substance abuse. Pollution. Exposure to toxins during childhood. Extreme weather conditions (such as excessive rain or snow) Hazardous conditions at work.
What happens if you don't have access to health related resources?
For example, if a person lacks access to health-related resources such as whole, nutrient-rich foods and they tend to eat more processed and refined foods, their body (and brain) won’ t function optimally. As a result, if they encounter a major stressor, they may not have the resources to effectively cope.
Is mental illness genetic?
Many people often assume mental illness simply runs in families. This is true , but genetics are only a part of it. These disorders actually occur due to a combination of factors, including a person’s environment and lifestyle. The world a person lives and functions within can play a major role in mental health.
What is the role of social environment in mental health?
“Having close, trusted, intimate others in your life is a significant positive factor for mental and physical health,” she says.
How does the environment affect mental health?
She also points to the fact that a person's social environment, including socioeconomic elements such as race and ethnicity and a lack of social support—which can have a profound influence on your ability to cope with stress—also affect your mental health.
What are the factors that affect mental health?
Other environmental factors that can have a significant impact on mental health include poverty, crime, and environmental racism. For example, research has found that a person's housing environment can play a role in their well-being. 1 Another study found that crime as well as the fear of crime had a substantial effect on mental well-being. 2.
What to do if you are not in a position to change something about your environment?
If you’re not in a position to change something about your environment, it’s critical that you work on reframing the beliefs you have about it . “Trying to find appreciation in the environment, even if it's one positive thing can help reframe your thoughts about your environment,” Scott says.
Can you move from one environment to another permanently?
Scott points out that picking up and moving from one environment to another permanently is not always an option for many of us. However, a temporary move from the city to the country, or perhaps closer to the water, is one way to try and test how your physical environment impacts your mood.
How has mental health changed over the years?
The last four decades have witnessed tremendous changes in mental health service delivery. The civil rights movement, the expansion of mental health services into the community, and the demographic shift toward greater population diversity led to a growing awareness of inadequacies of the mental health system in meeting the needs of ethnic and racial minorities Rogler et al., 1987; Takeuchi & Uehara, 1996. Research documented huge variations in utilization between minorities and whites, and it began to uncover the influence of culture on mental health and mental illness Snowden & Cheung, 1990; Sue et al., 1991. Major differences were found in some manifestations of mental disorders, idioms for communicating distress, and patterns of help-seeking. The natural outgrowth of research and public awareness was self-examination by the mental health field and the advent of consumer and family advocacy. As noted in Chapter 1 , major recognition was given to the importance of culture in the assessment of mental illness with the publication of the " Outline for Culture Formulation" in DSM-IV ( APA, 1994 ).
How does mental health affect society?
Every society influences mental health treatment by how it organizes, delivers, and pays for mental health services. In the United States, services are financed and delivered in vastly different ways than in other nations. That organization was shaped by and reflects a unique set of historical, economic, political, and social forces, which were summarized in the SGR ( DHHS, 1999 ). The mental health service system is a fragmented patchwork, often referred to as the " de facto mental health system" because of its lack of a single set of organizing principles ( Regier et al., 1993 ). While this hybrid system serves a range of functions for many people, it has not successfully addressed the problem that people with the most complex needs and the fewest financial resources often find it difficult to use. This problem is magnified for minority groups. To understand the obstacles that minorities face, this section provides background on mental health service settings, financing, and the concept of culturally competent services.
What are the factors that contribute to mental illness?
Cultural and social factors contribute to the causation of mental illness, yet that contribution varies by disorder. Mental illness is considered the product of a complex interaction among biological, psychological, social, and cultural factors.
How does migration affect mental health?
Migration, a stressful life event, can influence mental health. Often called acculturative stress, it occurs during the process of adapting to a new culture ( Berry et al., 1987 ). Refugees who leave their homelands because of extreme threat from political forces tend to experience more trauma, more undesirable change, and less control over the events that define their exits than do voluntary immigrants Rumbaut, 1985; Meinhardt et al., 1986.
How does culture affect coping?
Few doubt the importance of culture in fostering different ways of coping, but research is sparse. One of the few, yet well developed lines of research on coping styles comes from comparisons of children living in Thailand versus America. Thailand's largely Buddhist religion and culture encourage self-control, emotional restraint, and social inhibition. In a recent study, Thai children were two times more likely than American children to report reliance on covert coping methods such as "not talking back," than on overt coping methods such as "screaming" and "running away" ( McCarty et al., 1999 ). Other studies by these investigators established that different coping styles are associated with different types and degrees of problem behaviors in children ( Weisz et al., 1997 ).
What is the culture of the patient?
The culture of the patient, also known as the consumer of mental health services, influences many aspects of mental health, mental illness, and patterns of health care utilization. One important cautionary note, however, is that general statements about cultural characteristics of a given group may invite stereotyping of individuals based on their appearance or affiliation. Because there is usually more diversity within a population than there is between populations (e.g., in terms of level of acculturation, age, income, health status, and social class), information in the following sections should not be treated as stereotypes to be broadly applied to any individual member of a racial, ethnic, or cultural group.
How does culture relate to people?
Culture relates to how people cope with everyday problems and more extreme types of adversity. Some Asian American groups, for example, tend not to dwell on upsetting thoughts, thinking that reticence or avoidance is better than outward expression. They place a higher emphasis on suppression of affect Hsu, 1971; Kleinman, 1977, with some tending first to rely on themselves to cope with distress ( Narikiyo & Kameoka, 1992 ). African Americans tend to take an active approach in facing personal problems, rather than avoiding them Broman, 1996 ). They are more inclined than whites to depend on handling distress on their own ( Sussman et al., 1987 ). They also appear to rely more on spirituality to help them cope with adversity and symptoms of mental illness (Broman, 1996; Cooper-Patrick et al., 1997; Neighbors et al., 1998.
Determinants of Mental Health
Mental Health Promotion and Protection
- Mental health promotion involves actions that improve psychological well-being. This may involve creating an environment that supports mental health. An environment that respects and protects basic civil, political, socio-economic and cultural rights is fundamental to mental health. Without the security and freedom provided by these rights, it is d...
Mental Health Care and Treatment
- In the context of national efforts to develop and implement mental health policy, it is vital to not only protect and promote the mental well-being of its citizens, but also address the needs of persons with defined mental disorders. Knowledge of what to do about the escalating burden of mental disorders has improved substantially over the past decade. There is a growing body of e…
Who Response
- WHO supports governments in the goal of strengthening and promoting mental health. WHO has evaluated evidence for promoting mental health and is working with governments to disseminate this information and to integrate effective strategies into policies and plans. In 2013, the World Health Assembly approved a "Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan for 2013-2020". The Pla…