Topic Report: Mental Health 2024

Mental health is as important as physical health for our health and wellbeing. It underpins our ability to build strong relationships, to do well at school or in our jobs, and shapes how we interact with the world around us. Good mental health and well-being often leads to better physical health as well as a reduced chance of dying at a younger age. There are factors that can protect our mental health and well-being and others that can be a risk at individual, family, community and structural levels. These are summarized below.

Socio-demographic factors that can affect mental health include:

• education
• employment
• unemployment
• financial security
• housing/homelessness

Life experiences that can affect mental health include:

• transitions
• hobbies
• migration

Trauma or adversity can affect mental health such as:

• experiences
• bullying

Health factors include:

• lifestyle
• mental
• perinatal

Personality actors include:

• resilience
• aspirations
• ambitions
• autonomy

Identity factors include:

• ethnicity
• gender
• LGBT+
• religion or faith

Family structure can affect mental health such as:

• households
• carers
• poverty

Family dynamics can affect mental health such as:

• attachment
• parenting
• relationships

Social or Physical factors include:

• neighbourhood
• community safety
• networks and support
• communities
• nature

The following can also impact mental health:

• quality health, social services
• prisons or probation

Other factors include:

• inequalities
• social norms
• climate change

Global and political factors that could affect mental health include:

• economics
• welfare systems
• global events

Positive mental health and wellbeing are vital for building good population health, with strong overlap between these factors across the key life stages. Most of the risk factors for mental ill health in children are also relevant to adults and half of all mental health problems in adults are estimated to begin before the age of 14 years. Poor mental health and well-being can occur as a result of a cumulative effect of disadvantages over the life course or from new issues that may develop during adulthood. The causes or predictors of mental health and well-being are wide-ranging and it is likely that, for many people, there is a combination of risk and protective factors at play.

Good mental health and wellbeing enables us to get the most from life and feel connected to friends, family, and neighbours, fulfil our potential, contribute to communities and to adopt healthy lifestyles. Conversely, poor mental health and serious mental illness can be a significant burden to individuals, their families, and communities, affecting the quality of lives lived and leading to preventable early deaths.

While the risk and protective factors listed in this section can affect everyone, some residents in Buckinghamshire, and across England, are more likely to be vulnerable to poorer mental health and well-being. For example, residents who belong to particular groups are more likely to experience poorer mental health than others. This includes residents with physical health conditions, those living in poverty, from some ethnic groups, from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and those with caring responsibilities.