Mental Health

         Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. Mental health plays a crucial role in an individual's daily life when managing stress, engaging with others, and contributing to life overall. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is a "state of well-being in which the individual realizes their abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can contribute to their community". It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental health includes subjective well-being, perceived self-efficacy, autonomy, competence, intergenerational dependence, and self-actualization of one's intellectual and emotional potential, among others. Mental health also includes emotional, psychological, and social well-being, and it affects how people manage stress and make everyday decisions.

From the perspectives of positive psychology or holism, mental health is thus not merely the absence of mental illness. Rather, it is a broader state of well-being that includes an individual's ability to enjoy life and to create a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience. Cultural differences, personal philosophy, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how one defines "mental health".

Mental health promotion and prevention

Promotion and prevention efforts aim to improve mental health by addressing individual, social and structural determinants of mental health. Interventions can be designed for individuals, specific groups or whole populations.

Because many determinants lie outside the health sector, effective promotion and prevention programmes require cross-sector collaboration. Education, labour, justice, transport, environment, housing, and welfare sectors all have vital roles. The health sector can contribute by embedding promotion and prevention into its services and by leading or supporting multisectoral coordination.

Suicide prevention is a global priority and part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Key strategies include limiting access to means, promoting responsible media reporting, supporting social and emotional learning for adolescents, and ensuring early intervention. Banning highly hazardous pesticides is a particularly inexpensive and cost–effective intervention for reducing suicide rates.

Promoting child and adolescent mental health is another priority. Effective approaches include policies and laws that protect mental health, support for caregivers, school-based programmes and improvements to community and online environments. Among these, school-based social and emotional learning programmes are especially effective across all income levels.

Mental health at work is a growing area of interest and can be supported through legislation and regulation, workplace policies, manager training and targeted interventions for workers.