Mental Health

"Individual attributes and behaviors relate to a person's innate and learned ability to deal with thoughts and feelings and to manage him or herself in daily life, or emotional intelligence. It is also the capacity to deal with the social world around by partaking in social activities, taking responsibilities or respecting the views of others, or social intelligence. An individual’s mental health state can also be influenced by genetic and biological factors, including chromosomal abnormalities such as Down's syndrome and intellectual disability caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol or oxygen deprivation at birth. The capacity for people to develop and flourish is deeply influenced by their immediate social surroundings, including their opportunity to engage positively with family members, friends or colleagues, and earn a living for themselves and their families, and also by the socioeconomic circumstances in which they find themselves. Restricted or lost opportunities to gain an education and income are especially pertinent socioeconomic factors. The wider sociocultural and geopolitical environment in which people live can also affect an individual’s, household’s or community’s mental health status, including levels of access to basic commodities and services, exposure to predominating cultural beliefs, attitudes or practices, and social and economic policies formed at the national level. Discrimination, social or gender inequality and conflict are examples of adverse structural determinants of mental well-being."