World Federation for Mental Health- Newsletter- Fourth Quarter 2000

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The Value of Promotion and Prevention

Inaugural World Conference: The Promotion of Mental Health and Prevention of Mental and Behavioral Disorders, The Carter Center, 5-8 December 2000

The goal of the conference held at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, was to recognize promotion and prevention as fundamental parts of the mental health spectrum alongside treatment and care. WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland, M.D., signalled her interest in the meeting by coming directly from a conference in Japan to address the closing session.

The program opened with a welcome from Mrs. Rosalynn Carter, the patron of the meeting, and Gregory Fricchione, M.D., Director of the Carter Center Mental Health Program. The session’s keynote address was given by Prof. William Foege, M.D., M.P.H., Department of International Health at Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. Other opening speakers were Benedetto Saraceno, M.D., Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Dependence at WHO, WFMH President Ahmed El Azayem, M.D., and former WFMH President Beverly Long. Mrs. Long, a committed advocate for prevention, chaired the planning committee.

The organizers designed an intense and fast-paced series of plenary addresses and panel sessions, followed by presentations to small work groups which later drafted a number of recommendations. The program reviewed the present state of prevention science as it affects people across various stages of the life span, from interventions in pre-natal care, parenting and early childhood, to school-based research, projects affecting the workplace and the unemployed, and interventions to help the elderly.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, M.D., Director-General of the
World Health Organization, gave a keynote

address on the last day of the conference.

Prevention and Promotion

The conference recognized the close association of prevention and promotion in mental health. Prevention of the initial occurrence of disorder (primary prevention) was the strong focus of the conference, while it was recognized that some prevention scientists include prevention of relapse in the definition. Promotion emphasizes efforts to increase positive developmental strengths and resilience to stress. The organizers felt that the complimentary nature of the two concepts should be encouraged, so that an overall strategy of using prevention and promotion together can be developed as prevention and promotion research moves to a more advanced stage.

Successful prevention research on specific interventions has also created interest in combining interventions for greater impact, and on examining how culture, social class and gender affect results. There is a growing need for work on how to adapt a small, successful scientifically researched programs for large-scale use in public health. To take a program small intervention done in one country and adapt it for use in another presents many additional problems.

Message from the WFMH President

In April 2001 we will celebrate the World Health Organization’s “World Health Day” focused on mental health. This is very gratifying for WFMH’s Board, member organizations, constituent groups and individual members. WFMH is proud of its efforts to promote awareness of the social crisis caused by neglect of mental illness and failure to place it on the health policy agenda. This crisis is accompanied by discrimination and stigma. It is made worse by the fact that such illnesses often hit early in life.

Now a point may have been reached where policymakers around the world are ready to take a crucial step, Afrom exclusion to system of care.

We need national mental health policies, national funding, international cooperation. We need to develop mental health for the workforce. We need to incorporate it into primary health care. We need to have prevention programs in schools. We need community participation. We have a long list of needs and priorities.

WFMH is extending its arms to join forces with WHO and all other concerned bodies in this new global campaign to move from awareness to systems of care. The year 2001 should mark an intensive effort by the world community to win support from policymakers. It is now time for them to heed the international mental health movement, to put an end to the crisis caused by the high incidence of mental illness, and to work also for the prevention of mental ill health and the promotion of mental health in all fields of life.

Ahmed El Azayem