Mental Health Awareness Report: Impact of Stigma and Discrimination

This report addresses the critical importance of mental health awareness, emphasizing the need to combat stigma and discrimination associated with mental health problems. It highlights the negative impacts of societal attitudes and the crucial role of family, friends, and communities in fostering understanding and support. The report advocates for widespread campaigns, utilizing social media and other platforms to educate the public and encourage help-seeking behavior. It also suggests tailored interventions, including workplace adjustments, to promote a supportive environment for individuals facing mental health challenges. The report references key sources like time-to-change.org.uk and academic research to support its findings and recommendations, ultimately aiming to promote positive change and improve outcomes for individuals affected by mental health issues.

MENTAL HEALTH
AWARENESS

Time to change- about mental health
The mental health problems can affect any individual and statistically out of every 4 people 1
experience problems related to mental health. It is not only the experience of facing mental
health problems but the taboos and stigma associated with it which makes matters more complex
and people with mental health problems have to face shame, isolation and judgment. It is vital
that social movements like Time to Change come up to bringing about significant changes in the
way of thinking of people and help in ending the discrimination against mental health problems
(time-to-change.org.uk, 2019).
One of the important aspects to consider while addressing the problems related to mental health
is to emphasize the role of attitude of people towards people facing mental health problems.
There have instances where people facing mental health problems have been misunderstood by
their families, they have faced ignorance from their friends, neighbors and colleagues. The
stigma and discriminatory attitude prevents people with mental health problems to come forward
and seek medical and counseling help. This leads them to drift into isolation, facing difficulties
to form new relationships or restrict them from sustaining their current relationships having a
negative impact on their lives.
In order to end this discriminatory practice against people having mental health problems it is
important to improve the public behavior and attitude towards people. The personal relationships
and family members have a key role to play in helping to reduce the discriminatory practices as
their actions will help in challenging the stigma associated with mental health problems. It is
required that communities, workplace, schools and social media platforms are utilized to
generate awareness among people to stand for the rights of individuals facing mental health
problems and actions can be taken against those who indulge in such discriminatory practices
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(Salerno, 2016). A sustainable and long term campaign in required to generate awareness among
people and eradicate such discriminatory practices against people with mental health issues.
Ideas to support mental health awareness and improve outcomes
The family members, friends and neighbors can be educated regarding behavioral intentions
which are mediated according to knowledge about mental health associated problems. In this
regard social media and digital platforms can be utilized to disseminate knowledge effectively
(Saha et al. 2019). The diverse methods for delivering campaign goals to end discriminatory
practices must be adopted to have far and wider each among the people for bringing about
effective changes. The tailored interventions for encouraging people to seek help from primary
care will improve due to widespread awareness. The workplace interventions will also be
incorporated by the employers to help in providing support and reasonable adjustment in the
workplace to end discriminatory practices against people having mental health problems.
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References
time-to-change.org.uk (2019), About mental health. Retrieved from <https://www.time-to-
change.org.uk/about-mental-health>
Salerno, J. P. (2016). Effectiveness of universal school‐based mental health awareness programs
among youth in the United States: a systematic review. Journal of school health, 86(12),
922-931.
Saha, K., Torous, J., Ernala, S. K., Rizuto, C., Stafford, A., & De Choudhury, M. (2019). A
computational study of mental health awareness campaigns on social media.
Translational behavioral medicine.
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