Bridging Mental Health and Public Health - Article Example

The article details surveillance practices and concludes that further research must be conducted to determine the extent to which mental health affects other aspects of health. The article discusses the nature of ‘recovery’ as a permanent state, wherein the patient is able to live a functional and fulfilling life. While the article concludes with a number of proscriptive factors that must still be met to achieve such integration, it’s clear that the health community is moving in the right direction.

It’s interesting to consider the nature of mental health research in recent years, which has become almost entirely neurologically based, and wonder to what extent such a shift has caused its corresponding integration into primary care practice. The article fails to mention the extent to which mental health care practices have been accepted, and whether traditional counseling approaches are being marginalized for more objectively ‘valid’ biomedical treatments.