Socioeconomic Factors Short Paper

Mental and Emotional Well-being

By: Kristi Felch

Public health issue: Mental and Emotional Wellbeing

Analysis of the mental and emotional wellbeing

In many nations s the mental health of the citizens of the country is recognised largely as the key element towards the human development regarding his physical health. Furthermore, the mental health is a vital capstone toward the improvement of the socioeconomic status in a nation. Mental disorders especially depressions have contributed largely to the deterioration of the economic level of the relative organisation and the country at large (Grob, 2016).

Economic principles and indicators of mental and emotional wellbeing

The high ascending rate of mental health in the society have to lead to an increase in demand for identification of the evidence that supports the mental health traces in people. More likely, there is a need for investigation of the most effective ways that can be used to cube this factor, which should be very cost effective. Mental health or the physical well-being is a key factor in determining the behaviour of the individual in the employment environment as well as in the marketing environment (Grob, 2016).

Mental health will contribute on the way the resources are distributed among the individual making up a society. Furthermore, economics will be concerned on how the diverse ways of resources allocation have an impact on the society people. However, the resources available to meet all the health needs are very finite (Grob, 2016).

About the mental health and emotional well-being, the decision on the allocation of resources is a very complicated decision as the mental diseases tend to be common, disabling and long-lasting. Mental disorders are associated with welfare cases. When people in a society or a nation have conflicts as a result of mental disorders, they will affect the economic status of the nation. This is evidenced by the destruction of available resources. Despite this, inflation is another key economic indicator associated with mental disorders (Grob, 2016). A nation will secure loans from other nation with the aim of conquering the mental health issue. This will raise the level of inflation in the affected nation as it tries to coup with the payment of the loans.

Economic impact of mental health and wellbeing

1. Unemployment and poverty

Mental disorders are characterized by the fact that the mentally affected people will always tend to be accompanied by job-related issues. For instance, a mentally affected person will have a periodic character of absenteeism in the job. This will mean that the affected worker will not perform his delegated tasks. The employers will not allow such a worker, and he ends up quitting the job (World Health Organization, 2014).

2. Effect on personal income

As the rate of mental health increase, it affects the rate of working of the affected person regarding the number of working hours as well as the quality of the job done. Furthermore, those people who are supporting the mentally disordered persons will use much of their funds in caring for the mentally ill persons. For example, according to a research done by the WHO it show that the current number of patients being treated in the hospital is only 5% of what was there in 1950 eras (World Health Organization, 2014).

3. Diverting allocation of funds

The government in a nation that is highly affected by the mental illnesses will allocate much of the country funds towards the support of the treatment and management of the disorder. This will mean that less amount will be left for the development towards other sectors of the country. For instance, in the US the government will send the mentally ill persons to the prison instead of taking them to the mental hospitals, hence misdirecting funds (World Health Organization, 2014).

Some of the key organisation related to mental disorders are; World Health Organization (WHO), National Institute of National Health, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the National Health Service. Some of the strategies to coup with the disorder include introduction anti-stigma strategies, increased inventions concerning the disorders, creating public awareness and imposing laws to protect the right to the mentally sick persons from discrimination (World Health Organization, 2014).

Evaluation of policy

To decline the level of mental illness related issues, the WHO about the UN has come up with legal guidelines that are meant to ensure that the mentally disabled people are well treated and their right met. Furthermore, these policies ensure that the public are protected against the occurrence of the mental illness. These landscapes include;

· Promotion of mental health and prevention of mental disease. Everyone should benefit from the best possible measures to ensure their mental well-being. This is achieved through promoting behaviours which contribute to enhancing and maintaining the mental wellbeing of a person (Rogers, 2014).

· Access to basic mental health care. Everyone in need should have access to the basic mental treatment. This is achieved through having medical practices in keeping with the quality assurance such as those that are set by the WHO, and ensuring that the services are highly affordable to the citizens. Furthermore, this is boosted by introducing mental health components into the primary health (Rogers, 2014).

· Mental health assessment by the internationally accepted principles. This achieved through the promotion of clinical training using the internationally accepted tools and performing complete reassessment each time a new assessment is conducted (Rogers, 2014).

The above policies have to lead to ensuring better treatments are provided to the American citizens who have been affected by the mental illness. Furthermore, the policies have to lead to a decline in future possibilities of citizens having mental illnesses (Rogers, 2014).

Proposed policy

· Building community health services: this will ensure that anyone affected by the mental illness will not have a hard time in accessing medical services. The services will just be within the community.

· Promoting self-care: America should promote self-care by motivating its citizens to engage in self-care test. Awards should be made to those who stand out to engage in the frequent mental test.

· Raising awareness about mental disorders: the nation should find effective ways such as media to educate the citizens on the importance treating any trace or symptom of mental illness. Limitation as a result of mental illnesses should be made clear to the people.

Defending above policies

Despite the evidence that nearly 1 out of every 5 American citizens has a mental illness, American reluctance to improve the medical services have been one of the causes. The community health services will improve the care coordination and mental illness services. It will make the country use less fund due to improved treatment coordination (Clement et al., 2015).

Self-care strategies will ensure that the nation incorporates more or additional health care stuff. Evidence shows that America is hit by shortage of mental health workforce. However, when many people engage in self-care, more staffs will be needed to act as the consultancies, hence expanding the mental workforce (Clement et al., 2015).

Improving the level of awareness will provide a relative education concerning the disorder. Many American citizens are evidenced to have a negative attitude towards the people with mental illness as well as their associated families. Evidence-based awareness will reduce the level of discrimination among the mentally ill persons (Clement et al., 2015).

Implementation

Barriers to policy change

Limited knowledge: most of the American citizens lack adequate knowledge towards the causes, treatment and management of mental illnesses. This is evidenced when the statics show that 1 out of every five adults is affected by the mental illness (Melchiorre et al., 2013).

Lack of effective community strategy: for a change in a policy to be effective, all the parties need to be involved. The community at large plays a vital capstone in ensuring effective policy change. This is achieved through the persuasion by the community leaders. Lack of this support will be a barrio to the policy change and implementation (Melchiorre et al., 2013).

Ethnic differences: differences in the ethnic groups’ practices in a nation will prevent uniform implementation of some of the policies. Some communities will value some aspects while others will strongly oppose them.

Supports for policy change

High income and good social status: the higher the level of income of the people in a community or a nation, the higher the probability of support towards the proposed policies. For instance, if well-being people propose to improve the health facilities of the community, they are most likely to do so as they have enough funds to support the project (Melchiorre et al., 2013).

High education level: the higher the level of intellectual capabilities in a nation the higher the probability of improved reasoning towards the policy changes.

Physical environment: a society with the convenient physical environment will be geared toward improvement in both the health and social status as compared to that with minimal or unfavourable physical environment (Melchiorre et al., 2013).

Conclusion

In conclusion, as evidenced above, America is one of the nations that is predominantly hit by the effects of mental illness among its citizens. In my opinion, I would highly encourage the Americans to take precautionary measures to avoid being victims of mental illness. The relative mental organisation should encourage and raise awareness to the citizens to learn how to deal with stress, break up monotonies, and taking care of their bodies by being involved in physical and mental practices.

References

Grob, G. N. (2016). Community Mental Health Policy in America: Lessons Learned. Mental Health Reform and a Window of Opportunity for Community Mental Health, 53(1), 6.

World Health Organization. (2014). Social determinants of mental health. World Health Organization.

Rogers, A., & Pilgrim, D. (2014). A sociology of mental health and illness. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

Clement, S., Schauman, O., Graham, T., Maggioni, F., Evans-Lacko, S., Bezborodovs, N., ... & Thornicroft, G. (2015). What is the impact of mental health-related stigma on help-seeking? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies. Psychological medicine, 45(1), 11-27.

Melchiorre, M. G., Chiatti, C., Lamura, G., Torres-Gonzales, F., Stankunas, M., Lindert, J., ... & Soares, J. F. (2013). Social support, socio-economic status, health and abuse among older people in seven European countries. PloS one, 8(1), e54856.