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Concepts in Mental Health: Mental health goes beyond the absence of mental disorders. It exists on a complex continuum, experienced differently by each person, with varying degrees of difficulty and distress. Mental health conditions include mental disorders, psychosocial disabilities, and other mental states associated with significant distress, impairment in functioning, or risk of self-harm. People with mental health conditions may experience lower levels of mental well-being, but this is not always the case.

1. Determinants of Mental Health: Individual factors: Emotional skills, substance use, and genetics can make people more vulnerable to mental health problems. Social and structural factors: Exposure to unfavorable circumstances (e.g., poverty, violence, inequality) increases the risk of mental health conditions. Developmentally sensitive periods: Harsh parenting, bullying, and adverse experiences during early childhood can have detrimental effects.

2. Protective Factors: Strengthen resilience and promote mental well-being. Include social and emotional skills, positive interactions, quality education, decent work, safe neighborhoods, and community cohesion.

3. Global Threats and Mental Health: Economic downturns, disease outbreaks, humanitarian emergencies, and climate change heighten the risk for mental health conditions. Remember that mental health is a basic human right and crucial for personal, community, and socio-economic development.