Do you have a family history of mental health concerns? Maybe your mom struggled with depression, or your dad struggled with alcohol addiction. Are you destined to experience the same struggles?
What can you do to prevent struggles like these from developing in your life?
- What is preventive mental health?
- What are some benefits of preventive mental health?
- What are the different types of preventive mental health?
- What are some preventive mental health strategies?
Definition of Preventive Mental Health
Mental health encompasses so many aspects of life: our emotions, relationships, development, stress levels, etc. Prevention is the act of intentionally working to stop something before it starts. Construction workers who build houses try to prevent future structural problems by building a solid foundation and using good materials. Doctors try to help patients prevent future health problems through check-ups, screenings, and lifestyle recommendations.
Preventive mental health involves anything and everything we can do to limit or reduce the incidence, prevalence, and reoccurrence of mental disorders. Mental health prevention is both personal and societal. There are things you can do to support your own mental health and the mental health of those close to you. On a larger scale, organizations and governments work to promote mental health in society as a whole.
Incidence refers to how many people are diagnosed with a mental disorder during a specific time period (like a single year). Prevalence is a percentage of how many people have or had a mental disorder during a specific time period, compared to the population as a whole. Reoccurrence indicates all those who were previously diagnosed with a disorder, received treatment, and later sought out treatment again for the same disorder.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the incidence rate for depression among US adults was 21 million cases in 2020. The prevalence rate in 2020 was 8.4 percent of the population across all age groups, genders, and ethnicities. Prevalence rates were higher among females than males, and they were highest in the 18-25 age group compared to other age groups.
Benefits of Preventive Mental Health
Why is trying to prevent mental illness important? Does it really make a difference to focus effort on helping people stay healthy mentally? Yes! There are many benefits to preventive mental health, including benefits to other areas of life like physical health and academics.
Humans are biopsychosocial beings. This means that our biological health impacts our psychological health, our psychological health impacts our social health, and our social health impacts our biological health! Each of these areas impacts the others. Anything we can do to keep ourselves mentally healthy will also increase our biological and social well-being.
Some very practical benefits of preventive mental health are decreased healthcare costs, decreased time spent receiving treatment, improved performance at work or school, less personal pain and suffering, and stronger social support. Psychoeducation about mental disorders can help us more quickly notice concerns in ourselves or others. The earlier someone receives treatment for a mental disorder, the better!
In general, early treatment leads to better long-term outcomes. Anderson et al. (2018) from The University of Western Ontario studied the benefits of an early intervention program for teens and young adults struggling with mental health concerns like depression and anxiety. They found that individuals who participated in the program were more quickly able to gain access to a psychiatrist if needed and used the emergency room less the next year! Even though early intervention is different from prevention, the goals are the same: to help people be healthier longer and struggle less in future.
Preventive mental health also benefits your physical health! Mental health leads to decreased risks of strokes, heart disease, and cancer.
One really interesting example of how mental health is related to physical health is the mental disorder schizophrenia. Someone who is diagnosed with schizophrenia is at increased risk of developing endocrine and circulatory diseases. Treating schizophrenia and preventing it from getting worse can actually reduce the person's risk of these physical health problems!
Examples of Different Types of Mental Health Prevention
Professionals have organized mental health prevention into three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.
Primary Prevention
Primary prevention is stopping or preventing mental health problems before they start. Primary prevention is probably what you think of when you hear the word prevention. Usually, primary prevention happens through psychoeducation. Learning about emotional intelligence, practicing healthy emotional expression, and forming supportive relationships are all part of primary prevention.
Mental health awareness programs in schools, and suicide risk prevention programs in the community, are two examples of primary prevention.
Secondary Prevention
Every person has a unique background with different mental health risk factors. Things like a family history of mental health problems, parents who are divorced or separated, growing up in foster care, or experiencing domestic violence or abuse are some possible risk factors. Prevention strategies that help those at higher risk of developing a mental disorder make up level two, or secondary prevention.
LGBTQIA+ support programs, grief and loss groups, single parent support groups, and trauma recovery support are all examples of secondary prevention.
Tertiary Prevention
Remember when we mentioned early treatment for mental disorders? Early treatment strategies and support make up level three: tertiary prevention. This level contains strategies that help those already struggling with a mental disorder. The goal is to support them and help them recover so that the problems don't become worse. Early treatment helps individuals lead healthier lives in future.
Any mental health treatment is an example of tertiary prevention, but some specific examples are relapse prevention programs, community mental healthcare clinics, school counseling programs, and peer-led support groups.
Levels of Prevention, Vaia Original
Preventive Mental Health Strategies
As you can imagine, there are different strategies for each level of prevention. These strategies cover all areas of life: personal, family, community, society, government, and culture.
| Level of Prevention | Strategies |
| Primary Prevention | Physical healthcare, access to nutritious food, adequate Sleep and exercise, parenting classes, quality of the education system, help meeting basic needs, opportunities to form safe and supportive relationships, psychoeducational programs, reducing stigma, reducing racism and gender-inequity, Learning how to effectively deal with stress, mindfulness. |
| Secondary Prevention | Trauma interventions, support for the elderly and disabled, support for healthcare providers, LGBTQIA+ programs, support for victims of crime, improved treatment access for public service professionals (military, police, first-responders, etc.), victims of bullying groups, the juvenile justice system, family therapy, support for children of divorced parents, domestic violence and rape response teams, rehabilitation services, reentry programs, preventive personal therapy, improving social service, and foster care programs. |
| Tertiary Prevention | Proper diagnosis and treatment planning, access to treatment for those diagnosed, availability of treatment providers and specialists, individual therapy, group therapy, psychiatric hospitalization, access to medication, research on mental disorders, quality education for treatment providers, peer-led groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, school counseling programs, reducing the risk of developing a co-occurring disorder (another mental health disorder). |
Support, freepik.com
Preventive Mental Health - Key takeaways
- Preventative mental health involves anything and everything we can do to limit or reduce the incidence, prevalence, and reoccurrence of mental disorders.
- Humans are biopsychosocial beings; each of these areas impacts both of the others.
- Psychoeducation about mental disorders can help us more quickly notice concerns in ourselves or others.
- Professionals have organized mental health prevention into three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.
- Every person has a unique background with different mental health risk factors.
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