Building blocks of mental health

Our work on the building blocks of mental health is based on the principle of primary prevention and strives to tackle the ‘upstream’ causes of poor mental health before adverse outcomes develop. Mental health is an essential part of everyone’s overall health and wellbeing. 

We all need the right building blocks to thrive, such as:

• stable jobs
• good pay
• safe places
• quality homes
• community connections

In communities where they are lacking, we see unfair differences in mental health. For example, people without stable jobs or regular income are faced with constant worry about making ends meet, which causes chronic stress and leads to poorer mental health.  

We seek to understand how the building blocks influence mental health and what actions we can take to ensure everyone can access them.   

Our work applies a ‘whole system’ approach. This means considering the range of factors that influence mental health beyond policy areas or organisational boundaries. We work collaboratively, with a range of partners. Importantly, we seek to influence wider policies and programmes that can address unfair differences in access to the building blocks of mental health.

This matters because policy areas outside mental health greatly impact outcomes. We also share communications and facilitate connections to build knowledge and capacity. 

We have been working with the Scottish Government, COSLA and the SIPHER research consortium to contribute to Scotland’s Delivery Plan for the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, specifically action 5.1.3:  

“Public Health Scotland will lead a collaborative programme of work to develop a whole systems approach to understanding and taking action in relation to the key social determinants of mental health.” 

Because the whole system for mental health is large and complex, we have chosen to take this work forward with an initial focus on young people’s transition between school and work. This will involve working closely with other parts of Public Health Scotland.

In addition, we will be exploring the role of structural stigma, stigma associated with a range of personal characteristics and lived experience in mental health.

Meaningful stakeholder engagement is critical to the success of our building blocks work. Through this, we can share learning, build the will for change, and support effective preventative action. 

The work being undertaken to achieve this aim falls under three main categories of activity: 

1. reviewing literature to establish and consolidate existing evidence, and identify gaps  
2. whole system stakeholder workshops and other engagement  
3. systems mapping to identify where key levers and opportunities are, and what actions could positively impact mental health and wellbeing in Scotland