Community Interventions to Promote Mental Health and Social Equity.

Castillo EG, Ijadi-Maghsoodi R, Shadravan S, Moore E, Mensah MO, Docherty M, Aguilera Nunez MG, Barcelo N, Goodsmith N, Halpin LE, Morton I, Mango J, Montero AE, Rahmanian Koushkaki S, Bromley E, Chung B, Jones F, Gabrielian S, Gelberg L, Greenberg JM, Kalofonos I, Kataoka SH, Miranda J, Pincus HA, Zima BT, Wells KB. Community Interventions to Promote Mental Health and Social Equity. Current psychiatry reports. 2019 Mar 29; 21(5):35.

Related HSR&D Project(s)

• CDA 15-074 – Improving Housing Outcomes for Homeless Veterans

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: We review recent community interventions to promote mental health and social equity. We define community interventions as those that involve multi-sector partnerships, emphasize community members as integral to the intervention, and/or deliver services in community settings. We examine literature in seven topic areas: collaborative care, early psychosis, school-based interventions, homelessness, criminal justice, global mental health, and mental health promotion/prevention. We adapt the social-ecological model for health promotion and provide a framework for understanding the actions of community interventions. RECENT FINDINGS: There are recent examples of effective interventions in each topic area. The majority of interventions focus on individual, family/interpersonal, and program/institutional social-ecological levels, with few intervening on whole communities or involving multiple non-healthcare sectors. Findings from many studies reinforce the interplay among mental health, interpersonal relationships, and social determinants of health. There is evidence for the effectiveness of community interventions for improving mental health and some social outcomes across social-ecological levels. Studies indicate the importance of ongoing resources and training to maintain long-term outcomes, explicit attention to ethics and processes to foster equitable partnerships, and policy reform to support sustainable healthcare-community collaborations.