Mental Health: the global health issue coming of age

Last week the WHO CC welcomed Dr Ahmed Razavi, an experienced public health registrar and member of the faculty of public health (MFPH), to their weekly Wednesday meetings. He works with Public Health England (PHE) on their global public health team to advance PHE’s public mental health leadership activity. One of activities includes developing a global mental health offer as part of PHE’s global health remit. 

Attendees were able to interact and discuss ways of understanding mental health and well-being, and ways to tackle mental health from a public health perspective.   

There is an increasing mental health burden in low and middle-income countries, and PHE’s work aligns with WHO’s approach to public mental health based on their global mental health action plan. Key themes include reducing inequalities, community centred approaches, embedding and integrating mental health, improving workforce capacity and competence, and life course approach.