Health policy and mental health

Health policy can be described as policy directed at the determinants of health, i.e. biological and environmental factors, lifestyle and the health care system. This type of policy now has become a policy objective in an increasing number of countries. In this article mental health is placed in the broad context of this policy. The central question is: can the mental health field grasp the opportunity of a growing interest in prevention and health promotion in general, as major objectives of health policy? Or will it stay more or less isolated from the mainstream of current developments? Answering this question means looking at the conditions of health policy. For health policy it is required that a definition be given of health problems and "causing" conditions. There should further be available intervention possibilities of a preventive and intersectoral character and also preventive strategies. It is stated that there is enough standardized information on mental health problems and experience with community-based research to let mental health participate in drawing up a community diagnosis. It also appears possible to construct an ecological health status model for mental health. Research on the factors in this model shows a shift in focus from risk populations to risk situations, e.g. unemployment, industrial disability, divorce and isolation. Further it is recognized that the search for causal factors is substituted by that for precipitating factors. Social-demographic factors, taken alone, are not precipitating factors. What matters is the combination of an underdeveloped coping mechanism, little social support, and prolonged stressful conditions or sudden stressful events.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)