Promoting mental health : concepts, emerging evidence, practice / a report of the World Health Organization, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in collaboration with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation and the University of Melbourne ; editors, Helen Herrman, Shekhar Saxena, Rob Moodie.

This international book aims to bring to life the mental health dimension of health promotion. It describes the concepts relating to promotion of mental health, the emerging evidence for the effectiveness of interventions, and the public health policy and practice implications. The book includes evidence on the relationship between social and cultural factors and the mental health of individuals and communities. It reviews the available evidence from a range of countries and cultures. It documents how actions such as advocacy, policy and project development, legislative and regulatory reform, communications, research and evaluation may be achieved and monitored in countries at all stages of economic development. It considers strategies for continued growth of the evidence base and approaches to determining cost-effectiveness of actions. The book concludes that international cooperation and alliances will play a critical role in generating and applying the evidence by encouraging the social action required and monitoring the impact on mental health of a range of policies and practices. The evidence provided for the health and non-health interventions for mental health benefits is likely to be useful to health policy planners and public health professionals. The emphasis, however, is on the urgent need for a more systematic generation of evidence in the coming years, so that a stronger scientific base for further planning can be developed.--Publisher's description.