The WHO European Mental Health Action Plan encompasses promotion, prevention, treatment and recovery, within the context of a model of mental health that proposes a set of socio-economic and biological determinants that predispose to vulnerabilities and increase the risk of disorders. These determinants also negatively affect access to and quality of care. Such risk factors are shared with common non-communicable disorders, increasing the risk of morbidity and early mortality for people with mental disorders.

Mental health promotion and prevention actions should therefore be addressing determinants such as alcohol and smoking. However, such determinants are not equally distributed in the population, but cluster among vulnerable groups, such as those with a low income, the unemployed and minority groups. These groups overlap with the populations services struggle to reach. In addition, both primary care and specialist mental health services struggle to identify and treat people with co-morbidities. This suggests that connections need to be established between public health, primary care and specialist mental health services.

WHO is focussing on the strengthening of primary care and the interface with mental health services. In particular, there is an urgent need to screen people who present with symptoms of NCDs or mental disorders for common determinants and co-morbidities. Effective health promotion activities need to be offered to populations at risk, in addition to universal health promotion interventions such as taxation or advertising bans. Some examples will be presented.