Mental Health Education

This post was written by Makenzie Zidek, a Behavioral Health Coordinator at UPMC Shadyside Family Health Center.

Last week, the public health community celebrated National Health Education Week, or NHEW. The week was created as a way to bring national attention to public health issues and promote consumers' understanding of the role of health education and health promotion in society. The National Health Corps plays a huge role in health education by informing members of the community about various health topics everyday through our host sites, health fairs, and various community service events. Although you can talk about health education in a broad sense, I am going to focus on the need for health education through the lens of mental illness since I serve as a behavioral health care coordinator at Shadyside Family Health Center.

Even though great strides have been made  towards decreasing the stigma surrounding mental illness, we still have a long way to go. By making the community more aware of mental health we can portray the message that illnesses such as depression are real and they are not something people should be ashamed of. Living with mental illness can affect a person’s everyday life, work, and relationships with family and friends. Many people don’t realize that 1 in 10 people worldwide are affected by mental illness. However, not all of those people affected seek treatment due to the stigma surrounding mental health diagnoses.

Most of the stigma surrounding mental health stems from the fact that many people do not fully understand it. Mental illness is still widely seen in society as a separate entity from medical conditions. It is a widespread thought that having a mental health diagnosis is a “sign of personal weakness” or something that people can “pull themselves out of”. This way of thinking leads to misrepresentation of the illness and more importantly, creates a barrier to treatment. People are scared to be labeled as “crazy” or “unstable” and refuse to seek the help they need. Someone who comes in to a clinic to seek treatment for depression should be looked at no differently than someone who comes in for a broken arm. Mental illness is real and it is something that is almost impossible to fight on your own.

What are some ways that you can help end the stigma surrounding mental health? Educate yourself on the facts regarding mental health and illness and don’t be afraid to share them if you hear someone speaking incorrectly about it. Some people have never been informed on the subject and they don’t realize how their words can be hurtful and can feed into the stereotypes. National Health Education Week is an opportunity to remind ourselves that we don’t know everything and that's ok! The important thing is that we take the time to teach ourselves or ask others about the things we are unsure about so we can be better educated as a community on the many important issues surrounding healthcare.

Source: https://www.sophe.org/nhew.cfm