As someone who works in health promotion, I believe that we have to come
out of the dark ages and deal with mental health the way we deal with
physical health.  

It is inappropriate to talk about the mentally ill as if they were
somehow a group apart from the rest of us.  We don't talk about the
physically ill that way. We recognize that with respect to physical
illness and wellbeing, that we are all on a continuum and change on that
continuum from day to day.  We should do the same for mental health so
that some day a person who has anxiety should be no more embarrassed to
report it than someone with the flu.

By teaching people how to attain mental health and making it a part of
everyday health as we do for physical health, we will be vastly
improving everyone's health.

I would welcome a discussion on this.  

(Good email Andrew.)

Lynn Greaves
Population and Public Health Services
Regina Q'u'Appelle Health Region
1080 Winnipeg Street
Regina, Saskatchewan Canada S4R 8P8
([306] 766-6327 7[306] 766-6945
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-----Original Message-----
From: Health Promotion on the Internet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Andrew Taylor
Sent: March 10, 2009 11:17 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CLICK4HP] Improving the Health of Canadians: Exploring
Positive Mental Health

What is Positive Mental Health?

Mental health is more than the absence of mental illness. It is a
component
of overall health and is shaped by individual, physical environment,
social,
cultural and socio-economic characteristics. Increasingly, mental health
is
moving to the forefront of discussions and action on overall health and
well-being. However, much of the work in this area to date has not
focused
on supporting the development of positive mental health; instead, it has
had
a primary focus on mental illness, specifically service-, access- and
stigma-related issues. This was seen as a gap by the experts with whom
the
Canadian Population Health Initiative consulted regarding the focus of
this
report. Positive mental health is a construct that is still being
developed
and for which literature is emerging.
**
*Improving the Health of Canadians: Exploring Positive Mental Health*
brings
together available information and data analyses that look at one way of
defining positive mental health, how we currently measure it, its role
in
health, the factors associated with high levels of positive mental
health
and what strategies are, or may be, effective at promoting mental health
at
a population level.

To read more the report can be accessed at the following link:

http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/dispPage.jsp?cw_page=PG_1492_E&cw_topic=14
92&cw_rel=AR_1730_E

To manage subscriptions/passwords, or view archives, go to
http://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/click4hp.html . [log in to unmask] is
run in collaboration with Health Nexus:
http://www.healthnexus.ca/index_eng.php

To manage subscriptions/passwords, or view archives, go to http://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/click4hp.html . [log in to unmask] is run in collaboration with Health Nexus: http://www.healthnexus.ca/index_eng.php