This article summarizes the conception and diagnosis of the mental health continuum, the findings supporting the two continua model of mental health and illness, and the benefits of flourishing to ...individuals and society. Completely mentally healthy adults-individuals free of a 12-month mental disorder and flourishing-reported the fewest missed days of work, the fewest half-day or greater work cutbacks, the healthiest psychosocial functioning (i.e., low helplessness, clear goals in life, high resilience, and high intimacy), the lowest risk of cardiovascular disease, the lowest number of chronic physical diseases with age, the fewest health limitations of activities of daily living, and lower health care utilization. However, the prevalence of flourishing is barely 20% in the adult population, indicating the need for a national program on mental health promotion to complement ongoing efforts to prevent and treat mental illness. Findings reveal a Black advantage in mental health as flourishing and no gender disparity in flourishing among Whites.
We investigated whether positive mental health predicts all-cause mortality.
Data were from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study (n = 3032), which at baseline in 1995 measured positive ...mental health (flourishing and not) and past-year mental illness (major depressive episode, panic attacks, and generalized anxiety disorders), and linked respondents with National Death Index records in a 10-year follow-up ending in 2005. Covariates were age, gender, race, education, any past-year mental illness, smoking, physical inactivity, physical diseases, and physical disease risk factors.
A total of 6.3% of participants died during the study period. The final and fully adjusted odds ratio of mortality was 1.62 (95% confidence interval CI = 1.00, 2.62; P = .05) for adults who were not flourishing, relative to participants with flourishing mental health. Age, gender, race, education, smoking, physical inactivity, cardiovascular disease, and HIV/AIDS were significant predictors of death during the study period.
The absence of positive mental health increased the probability of all-cause mortality for men and women at all ages after adjustment for known causes of death.
Throughout the world people differ in the magnitude with which they value strong family ties or heightened religiosity. We propose that this cross-cultural variation is a result of a contingent ...psychological adaptation that facilitates in-group assortative sociality in the face of high levels of parasite-stress while devaluing in-group assortative sociality in areas with low levels of parasite-stress. This is because in-group assortative sociality is more important for the avoidance of infection from novel parasites and for the management of infection in regions with high levels of parasite-stress compared with regions of low infectious disease stress. We examined this hypothesis by testing the predictions that there would be a positive association between parasite-stress and strength of family ties or religiosity. We conducted this study by comparing among nations and among states in the United States of America. We found for both the international and the interstate analyses that in-group assortative sociality was positively associated with parasite-stress. This was true when controlling for potentially confounding factors such as human freedom and economic development. The findings support the parasite-stress theory of sociality, that is, the proposal that parasite-stress is central to the evolution of social life in humans and other animals.
We examined the structure, reliability, construct validity, and gender invariance of the Italian version of the Mental Health Continuum–Short Form (Italian MHC–SF), a self-report questionnaire for ...positive mental health assessment developed by Keyes. The scale was administered to 1,438 Italian respondents, mainly from central and southern Italy, between the ages of 18 and 89 years (m = 47.12; SD = 19.56). Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the three-factors solution (emotional, psychological, and social) and a latent factor consisting of the three dimensions of well-being, and that the structure of the scale was the same for males and females. Results revealed a high internal reliability and moderate test–retest reliability. The subscales correlated positively with corresponding aspects of well-being and functioning, showing convergent validity. The scale correlated negatively and moderately with measures of mental illness, showing divergent validity. Exploratory factor analysis supported the hypothesis of two separate, but correlated, factors for mental health and mental illness, showing discriminant validity and support for the two-continua model. A categorical diagnosis of the presence of mental health and the absence of mental health was applied to the sample. The Italian MHC–SF is a reliable and valid instrument to measure well-being and the positive aspects of mental health.
Multimorbidity-having two or more coexisting chronic conditions-is highly prevalent, costly, and disabling to older adults. Questions remain regarding chronic diseases accumulation over time and ...whether this differs by racial and ethnic background. Answering this knowledge gap, this study identifies differences in rates of chronic disease accumulation and multimorbidity development among non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic study participants starting in middle-age and followed up to 16 years.
We analyzed data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a biennial, ongoing, publicly-available, longitudinal nationally-representative study of middle-aged and older adults in the United States. We assessed the change in chronic disease burden among 8,872 non-Hispanic black, non-Hispanic white, and Hispanic participants who were 51-55 years of age at their first interview any time during the study period (1998-2014) and all subsequent follow-up observations until 2014. Multimorbidity was defined as having two or more of seven somatic chronic diseases: arthritis, cancer, heart disease (myocardial infarction, coronary heart disease, angina, congestive heart failure, or other heart problems), diabetes, hypertension, lung disease, and stroke. We used negative binomial generalized estimating equation models to assess the trajectories of multimorbidity burden over time for non-Hispanic black, non-Hispanic white, and Hispanic participants. In covariate-adjusted models non-Hispanic black respondents had initial chronic disease counts that were 28% higher than non-Hispanic white respondents (IRR 1.279, 95% CI 1.201, 1.361), while Hispanic respondents had initial chronic disease counts that were 15% lower than non-Hispanic white respondents (IRR 0.852, 95% CI 0.775, 0.938). Non-Hispanic black respondents had rates of chronic disease accumulation that were 1.1% slower than non-Hispanic whites (IRR 0.989, 95% CI 0.981, 0.998) and Hispanic respondents had rates of chronic disease accumulation that were 1.5% faster than non-Hispanic white respondents (IRR 1.015, 95% CI 1.002, 1.028). Using marginal effects commands, this translates to predicted values of chronic disease for white respondents who begin the study period with 0.98 chronic diseases and end with 2.8 chronic diseases; black respondents who begin the study period with 1.3 chronic diseases and end with 3.3 chronic diseases; and Hispanic respondents who begin the study period with 0.84 chronic diseases and end with 2.7 chronic diseases.
Middle-aged non-Hispanic black adults start at a higher level of chronic disease burden and develop multimorbidity at an earlier age, on average, than their non-Hispanic white counterparts. Hispanics, on the other hand, accumulate chronic disease at a faster rate relative to non-Hispanic white adults. Our findings have important implications for improving primary and secondary chronic disease prevention efforts among non-Hispanic black and Hispanic Americans to stave off greater multimorbidity-related health impacts.
Objective: To investigate whether level of positive mental health complements mental illness in predicting students at risk for suicidal behavior and impaired academic performance. Participants: A ...sample of 5,689 college students participated in the 2007 Healthy Minds Study and completed an Internet survey that included the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form and the Patient Health Questionnaire screening scales for depression and anxiety disorders, questions about suicide ideation, plans, and attempts, and academic impairment. Results: Just under half (49.3%) of students were flourishing and did not screen positive for a mental disorder. Among students who did, and those who did not, screen for a mental disorder, suicidal behavior and impaired academic performance were lowest in those with flourishing, higher among those with moderate, and highest in those with languishing mental health. Conclusions: Positive mental health complements mental disorder screening in mental health surveillance and prediction of suicidal behavior and impairment of academic performance.
We sought to describe the prevalence of mental health and illness, the stability of both diagnoses over time, and whether changes in mental health level predicted mental illness in a cohort group.
In ...2009, we analyzed data from the 1995 and 2005 Midlife in the United States cross-sectional surveys (n = 1723), which measured positive mental health and 12-month mental disorders of major depressive episode, panic, and generalized anxiety disorders.
Population prevalence of any of 3 mental disorders and levels of mental health appeared stable but were dynamic at the individual level. Fifty-two percent of the 17.5% of respondents with any mental illness in 2005 were new cases; one half of those languishing in 1995 improved in 2005, and one half of those flourishing in 1995 declined in 2005. Change in mental health was strongly predictive of prevalence and incidence (operationalized as a new, not necessarily a first, episode) of mental illness in 2005.
Gains in mental health predicted declines in mental illness, supporting the call for public mental health promotion; losses of mental health predicted increases in mental illness, supporting the call for public mental health protection.
Mental Health in Adolescence Keyes, Corey L. M
American journal of orthopsychiatry,
July 2006, Letnik:
76, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
A continuous assessment and a categorical diagnosis of the presence of mental health, described as flourishing, and the absence of mental health, characterized as languishing, are proposed and ...applied to data from the second wave of the Child Development Supplement (CDS-II) of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), in which a comprehensive set of subjective well-being items were administered to a sample of 1,234 youth ages 12-18. Flourishing was the most prevalent diagnosis among youth ages 12-14; moderate mental health was the most prevalent diagnosis among youth ages 15-18. Depressive symptoms decreased as mental health increased. Prevalence of conduct problems (arrested, skipped school, alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and marijuana use) also decreased and measures of psychosocial functioning (global self-concept, self-determination, closeness to others, and school integration) increased as mental health increased. Findings suggest the importance of positive mental health in future research on adolescent development.
Unsafe drinking water and household air pollution (HAP) are major causes of morbidity and mortality among children under 5 in low and middle-income countries. Household water filters and ...higher-efficiency biomass-burning cookstoves have been widely promoted to improve water quality and reduce fuel use, but there is limited evidence of their health effects when delivered programmatically at scale.
In a large-scale program in Western Province, Rwanda, water filters and portable biomass-burning natural draft rocket-style cookstoves were distributed between September and December 2014 and promoted to over 101,000 households in the poorest economic quartile in 72 (of 96) randomly selected sectors in Western Province. To assess the effects of the intervention, between August and December, 2014, we enrolled 1,582 households that included a child under 4 years from 174 randomly selected village-sized clusters, half from intervention sectors and half from nonintervention sectors. At baseline, 76% of households relied primarily on an improved source for drinking water (piped, borehole, protected spring/well, or rainwater) and over 99% cooked primarily on traditional biomass-burning stoves. We conducted follow-up at 3 time-points between February 2015 and March 2016 to assess reported diarrhea and acute respiratory infections (ARIs) among children <5 years in the preceding 7 days (primary outcomes) and patterns of intervention use, drinking water quality, and air quality. The intervention reduced the prevalence of reported child diarrhea by 29% (prevalence ratio PR 0.71, 95% confidence interval CI 0.59-0.87, p = 0.001) and reported child ARI by 25% (PR 0.75, 95% CI 0.60-0.93, p = 0.009). Overall, more than 62% of households were observed to have water in their filters at follow-up, while 65% reported using the intervention stove every day, and 55% reported using it primarily outdoors. Use of both the intervention filter and intervention stove decreased throughout follow-up, while reported traditional stove use increased. The intervention reduced the prevalence of households with detectable fecal contamination in drinking water samples by 38% (PR 0.62, 95% CI 0.57-0.68, p < 0.0001) but had no significant impact on 48-hour personal exposure to log-transformed fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations among cooks (β = -0.089, p = 0.486) or children (β = -0.228, p = 0.127). The main limitations of this trial include the unblinded nature of the intervention, limited PM2.5 exposure measurement, and a reliance on reported intervention use and reported health outcomes.
Our findings indicate that the intervention improved household drinking water quality and reduced caregiver-reported diarrhea among children <5 years. It also reduced caregiver-reported ARI despite no evidence of improved air quality. Further research is necessary to ascertain longer-term intervention use and benefits and to explore the potential synergistic effects between diarrhea and ARI.
Clinical Trials.gov NCT02239250.
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