In their article “The Evidence of Effective Interventions for Mental Health Promotion,” Clemens Hosman and Eva Jane-Llopis state that to prove the effectiveness of the programs contributing to mental health, it is necessary to refer to the evidence of the program’s effects received with the help of quasi-experimental studies. The authors focus on the intervention programs which have the most obvious positive effect on people’s mental health. These interventions can be divided into macro interventions and meso and micro-interventions.
The programs focused on improving nutrition belong to macro interventions, and they are effective when being combined with counseling services. The programs developed to improve housing work to overcome poverty and create appropriate conditions for living. The interventions to improve education work to increase the population literacy and education level to reduce the stress of being cheated, to overcome the gender gap, and to develop cognitive and emotional competencies. I can state that these programs can contribute to people’s mental health because they are oriented to satisfying the persons’ basic needs to provide them with the opportunities to overcome everyday stress.
According to Hosman and Jane-Llopis, to reduce economic insecurity, the poverty-alleviation programs are used to support the low-income population. Intervention to strengthen community networks are used to develop the persons’ vision of social responsibility and to overcome social violence. I am sure that the focus on the people’s interactions within the community is the first step to predicting the problems with mental health. The interventions used to reduce the misuse of addictive substances are based on the banning policies, laws to change the legal drinking age, and policies to predict the use of substances during pregnancy. In my opinion, the success of these interventions can contribute to people’s mental health more obviously because substance abuse often leads to mental health problems.
Hosman and Jane-Llopis’s meso and micro-interventions are more diverse, and they are focused on supporting children, adults, and elderly persons. Interventions for children include the support during the early stages of life in the form of home visiting to develop the parents’ competencies; parenting interventions to develop the positive relations between parents and children; and preschool education interventions to develop the children’s emotional and cognitive skills. I should state that these interventions are effective because children need a healthy start in their life to develop their mental health in the future. Parents should know the ways of promoting the children’s mental health to avoid any disorders.
Much attention is paid to the programs associated with school settings to help children adapt to the new settings and build strong relations with peers. The school ecology programs work to change the whole school environment in relation to the positive pattern, and targeted programs work to cope with concrete problems such as anxiety disorders. In this case, the targeted programs are very effective to overcome the results of the social pressure, ineffective parenting, and other problems.
Definite programs are proposed for adults to help them cope with the unemployment situation and stress at the workplace in order to become an active member of society and avoid depressions. I am sure that adults need support while coping with the challenging situations of losing the job or while surviving in dangerous working environments. That is why these programs should be promoted in society. Furthermore, a range of programs is proposed for elderly persons, and these interventions include the focus on physical activity and exercises, befriending, and providing hearing aids. The elderly persons are the vulnerable social category, and to reduce their depressions, stresses, and physical sufferings, effective intervention programs should be developed.
Thus, I am inclined to agree with Hosman and Jane-Llopis’s discussion of the intervention programs as effective to improve people’s mental health.