Mental health in all policies

Mental Health in All Policies (MHiAP) is an approach to promote population mental health and wellbeing by initiating and facilitating action within different non-health public policy areas. MHiAP emphasises the impacts of public policies on mental health determinants, strives to reduce mental health inequalities, aims to highlight the opportunities offered by mental health to different policy areas, and reinforces the accountability of policy-makers for mental health impact.  

The MHiAP approach can be applied at all levels, ranging from individual projects through to regional and national policy areas.

Mental health has a substantial and broad set of impacts across policy areas. Mental disorders constitute one third of the disease burden in Europe, a figure which is on the increase.  Many individual, familial and societal determinants of mental health lie in non-health policy domains such as social policy, taxation, education, employment and community design.  

It is now recognised that the very foundations of mental health are laid down early in life and are later supported by positive nurturing, high social capital, a good work life and a sense of meaning. Many of these factors can be enhanced through the MHiAP approach in non-health sectors and, therefore, remain important targets for mental health promotion and mental disorder prevention interventions. Examples of effective interventions to promote population mental health include interventions in local communities, parenting support and home visiting programmes as well as school based programmes. 

Lessons learned from the promotion of physical health indicate that the road to improved mental health among populations lies less in the investment in late-coming mental health services, but more in a co-ordinated public mental health programme to implement large-scale promotion and prevention activities.