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Mental illness affects the majority of prisoners. Mental health issues are beginning to take a central position in the development of prison health services, reflecting this burden of disease. This change in focus is not before time. But prison mental health services cannot exist in isolation. Public health systems should lead provision of care for patients with acute and severe illness. A whole prison approach to health and, specifically, mental health will offer the greatest likelihood that offenders will thrive, benefit from imprisonment, and lead law‐abiding lives after release. Public awareness of the scale and commitment of prisons to mental health and illness, and understanding of prisons’ role in society, are necessary developments that would protect and enhance public mental health, as well as creating a healthier and safer society. This article draws on recent reviews, information and statements to set out a public health agenda for mental health in prisons.

This chapter outlines the paucity of media research attending to mental health and mental illness in sport. As such, the purpose of this chapter is to encourage critical reflection and further research on the mass mediation of mental illness in sport.

In the first part of the chapter, we review the extensive literature addressing the mass mediation of mental illness and mental health in order to provide key reference points for future scholarship. We then suggest to potential avenues for sociological study of this topic: Talcott Parson’s sick role and Guy Debord’s spectacle.

The authors find that the notion of the sick role provides insight into the assumptions underpinning athlete disclosure of mental illness as well as encouragement of help seeking behavior in relation to mental illness specifically. From a broader perspective on mental health, the authors identify a central challenge of the spectacular presentation of mental health and well-being and the lived experience.

The central limitation of the field currently is the dearth of research. Similarly, in providing a broad overview of key considerations, this chapter does not undertake primary media analysis of mental illness in sport. Nonetheless, the authors outline key considerations and lines of inquiry for the field.

Mental health services in Great Britain are built predominately upon a bipolar perspective of mental health. That is, mental health is seen to exist on the opposite end of the same continuum as mental illness. The existence or degree of mental health is therefore dependent upon the existence or degree of mental illness and mental health is seen as a ‘secondary’ concept to mental illness. The aim of this paper is to review critically both the conceptual and the pragmatic implications of this position. This is achieved through an exploration of the differing (and often competing) ontological assumptions about mental illness. Second, the pragmatic repercussions that this has for mental health promotion are presented. The paper culminates by discussing the possible benefits of viewing mental health from within a two‐continua model — on both conceptual and pragmatic grounds.

Influential social and recovery models, de‐emphasising mental illness understandings, form key mandates for mental health education today. This paper, however, aims to question how responsive these perspectives may be to service users, and seeks to review the value of mental illness concepts to social model approaches.

In the context of recovery model concerns with the associations of mental illness notions to stigma and disempowerment, the paper first reviews research concerning service users' experiences of mental illness. It then investigates the roots of mental illness stigma, tracing these back to socio‐historical discourses predating mental illness concepts. Against this background, the evolution of mental illness theories and their value to service users is appraised.

The paper finds that mental illness experiences, linked to experiences of social inequalities, can devastate and form major barriers to recovery approaches; however, the finding that mental illness stigma connects to discourses predating mental illness concepts suggests that the value of the latter can potentially be considered afresh. Against this background, the paper draws out the significance of historical theories of mental illness and contemporary developments, for the promotion of service users' rights and recovery.

The findings have implications for the development of social approaches in mental health education which embrace mental illness alongside social understandings which are just as important in recovery.

The paper advances recognition of mental illness stigma and mental illness concepts as distinct in their origins, and in this context reviews the significance of mental illness experiences and theories for service users and mental health education.

Research on mental illness stigma in the Arab world has traditionally focused on socio-cultural barriers that deprive persons with mental illness from their fundamental human right for privacy and informed consent. The purpose of this paper is to address the question whether or not mental health legislations in a number of Arab countries effectively safeguard the human rights of people with mental illness and protect them from stigmatizing and discriminatory practices.

A qualitative review of literature was performed over two rounds of search, targeting published research on mental illness stigma in the Arab world from year 2000 until now and existing national mental health legislations in the Arab world, using English and Arabic databases.

The review reveals that beyond society and culture, persistence of mental illness stigma in the Arab world may be explained by absent or inefficient monitoring mechanisms of mental health legislations and policies within the health-care setting. Although integration of mental health services into the primary health care system is being gradually implemented as a step toward de-stigmatization of mental illness, more remains to be done to change the stigmatizing behavior of the health personnel toward mental illness.

Mental health authorities in the Arab world need to be more aware of the public perceptions explaining people’s fear and reluctance to seek mental health care, so as to ensure that the control and monitoring mechanisms at both the primary and mental health care levels foster a human rights, culturally competent, patient-friendly and non-stigmatizing model of mental health care.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of private and public sector managers in Barbados regarding the concepts of mental health and illness at work. It also explored their interactions and experiences with persons with mental illness at work and various forms of support and resources needed to improve the overall management of these persons within the organisational setting.

This qualitative study used an exploratory research design based on two focus groups of private and public sector managers.

The findings revealed that both private and public sector managers understood the distinction between the concepts of mental health and mental illness. However, managers believed that high levels of stigma and discrimination exist in both private and public sector workplaces due to a lack of understanding of mental illness, cultural norms, and socialisation in Barbados regarding mental illness and negative stereotypes. However, workplace education and promotion, associated workplace policies, and employee assistance programmes (EAPs) were identified as key strategies for effectively addressing issues of mental health stigma and the management of persons with mental illness at work.

Due to the qualitative approach used and small sample selected based on non-probability sampling, generalising the findings to larger populations is heavily cautioned.

Organisations in both private and public sectors should emphasise workplace mental health interventions such as mental health education and awareness, the development and implementation of supportive and flexible policies, and EAPs. These strategies are likely to help destigmatisation efforts and enhance managers’ understanding of mental health and the management of persons with mental illness.

This study provided a rich and in-depth understanding of mental health and illness from the perspective of private and public sector managers in a small developing country in the Caribbean. The Caribbean region possesses a dearth of empirical research concerning issues of mental health and illness at work.

This paper explores issues surrounding the under‐representation of people from the Gujarati community in mental health statistics and services in the UK and asks why people from the Gujarati communities are less likely to seek assistance for mental health problems. It is well known that members of the African‐Caribbean community are over‐represented in mental health statistics, and this is attributed to factors such as racial discrimination, social adversity and stress of migration. However, members of the Gujarati community have also been exposed to these hardships, but are not similarly represented in the mental health statistics. The paper explores a selection of the key literature. Two questions are considered: first, whether this group genuinely has very good mental health (and if so why); and second, whether there are any factors that hold members of this community back from seeking help.

Our objective was to compare the physical health status of adult prisoners with and without a mental illness. Mental illness was diagnosed in a sample of 557 Australian prisoners using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). Physical health measures included self‐reported chronic health conditions, recent health complaints and symptoms, self‐assessed health using the Short‐Form 36 Health Survey (SF‐36), and markers of infectious diseases known to be highly prevalent among prisoner populations (hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C). Men and women with a mental illness had lower scores on the SF‐36 compared with those without a mental illness indicating poor overall health. Adjusting for age and sex, a diagnosis of any mental illness (symptoms of psychosis, anxiety or affective disorder) was positively associated with a history of head injury, back problems, asthma, peptic ulcers, cancer, and epilepsy/seizures. There was a significant association between post traumatic stress disorder and asthma, a history of head injury, peptic ulcers, and cancer. There was no significant difference in the proportion of current tobacco smokers in the mentally ill and nonmentally ill groups (81% vs. 77%, p = 0.33). However, those with a mental illness were less likely than those with no diagnosis to exercise in the past 4 weeks (79% vs. 89%, p = 0.002). Mentally ill prisoners also have significant physical co‐morbidity compared with the non‐mentally ill. These findings suggest that those providing mental health services to prisoners should adopt a holistic approach embracing both mental and physical health.

The purpose of this paper is to inform education of non-mental health professionals who provide care to people with severe mental illness; to describe dentistry students’ knowledge and views about mental illness, including willingness to engage in various social situations with a person hospitalised for mental illness; and to assess and understand the impact of a targeted lecture on views and attitudes.

The paper employed mixed methods to examine dental students’ knowledge and views about mental disorder before and after a seminar covering mental disorder, disadvantage and oral health. Findings from a bespoke questionnaire administered to third-year dental students were triangulated with qualitative data gathered in interviews with a subsample.

Students understood mental disorder broadly, employing diverse causal models. Although knowledge was typically grounded in media stereotypes, attitudes were benevolent and most students reported willingness to provide dental care to affected individuals. The seminar, especially the consumer delivered section, was valued and associated with increased appreciation of the impact of mental disorder on oral health and need for assertive action to promote access to care. However, students reported being reluctant to disclose their own mental health problems for fear of being considered a professional or personal failure. A minority knew how to seek support if a friend talked of suicide.

This study highlights the need for further investigation of the knowledge and attitudes of dentistry students pertinent to provision of care to people with mental illness and to examine the links between attitudes and practice. The paper also provides a useful foundation for development of brief educational interventions, particularly the value in integrating the service user perspective, and their evaluation. Research should also examine the impact of mental health education on practice.

A single inexpensive educational session, such as the one the paper developed may support reconsideration of often unconscious views of mental illness which might affect practice.

If people with mental illness are to receive equitable access to health care, non-mental health professionals should be supported to develop knowledge and attitudes which are conducive to inclusive treatment. An education session such as this could be helpful.

There is scant literature examining attitudes of dentistry students and no reports of mental health-specific education with this population.

Somali immigrants are a strong, vibrant community in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. However, the legacy of resettlement and the challenges of adjustment can lead to complex physical and mental health challenges. The Somali community is considered to be underserved, particularly with regard to mental health, but the health system must understand the perception of mental health in the Somali community in order to address current disparities. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This qualitative research drew on the Social Ecological Model (SEM) and was conducted with the goal of learning more about how mental illness is perceived in the Somali community living in Minnesota. Four focus groups were held, with a total of 35 participants, 19 female and 16 male.

Several main themes emerged from the data. The community’s foundations of the perceptions of mental health inform and shape their perspective on mental illness, including the way mental illness is defined. Historical experiences, the impact of trauma, strong religious beliefs, and stigma toward mental illness influenced both the perceived causes of mental illness and views on seeking treatment.

This research suggests there is value in drawing on the SEM to as the perception of mental illness is both layered, and shaped by the Somali community’s historical and social context. Forming community partnerships that address concerns about mental illness are essential next steps toward improving mental health in the Somali community. These partnerships should build on existing community assets, particularly religious leaders.