First Published in 2012. The past 150 years have seen dramatic and continuing improvements in health and life expectancy. In the last century alone. Formulating a 21st century public health agenda to address the increasing burden of chronic diseases worldwide will require the same innovation and perseverance. Split into three sections, the first highlights the public health significance of mental health by focusing on the evidence and epidemiology of the burden; the second on policy aspects central to population mental health, including the mental health care system, laws and regulations, and finally the global effort to improve the mental health of populations; focus on public health practice as it applies to mental health care utilization of the population as whole, as well as vulnerable subpopulations, such as children and the elderly.

Chapter 1 Population mental health, Neal Cohen, Sandro Galea; Part 1 Evidence; Chapter 2 The Burden of Mental Disorders Worldwide, Ronald C. Kessler, Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, Jordi Alonso, Somnath Chatterji, Sing Lee, Daphna Levinson, Johan Ormel, T. Bedirhan Üstün, Philip S. Wang; Chapter 3 Epidemiology in Public Mental Health, Ezra Susser, Rebecca P. Smith; Chapter 4 Social and Environmental Influences on Population Mental Health, Emily Goldmann, Sandro Galea; Chapter 5 Disparities in Mental Health Status and Care in the U.S., Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, William S. Sribney, Bonnie Raingruber, Natasha Wenzel, Dana Fields-Johnson, Gustavo Loera; Chapter 6 The Particular Role of Stigma, Patrick W. Corrigan, Dror Ben-Zeev; Part 2 Policy; Chapter 7 Social Policy and the American Mental Health System of Care, David Mechanic, Gerald N. Grob; Chapter 8 Legislating Social Policy, John Petrila, Jeffrey Swanson; Chapter 9 Community Rights, Recovery, and Advocacy, David Roe, Kim T. Mueser; Chapter 10 "No health without mental health", Mark Tomlinson, Leslie Swartz, Karen Daniels; Part 3 Public Health Practice; Chapter 11 Mental Health Service Utilization in the United States, Benjamin G. Druss, Philip S. Wang, Ronald C. Kessler; Chapter 12 Public health approaches to improving population mental health, Adam Karpati; Chapter 13 Realizing the possibilities of school mental health across the public health continuum, Carrie Mills, Maura Mulloy, Mark Weist; Chapter 14 Healthy aging and mental health, Marianne C. Fahs, William Cabin, William T. Gallo; Chapter 15 Protecting urban families from community violence, Neal Cohen; Chapter 16 Public health and population approaches for suicide prevention, Eric D. Caine, Kerry L. Knox, Yeates Conwell; Part 4 Conclusion; Chapter 17 Twenty-first century public health practice, Neal Cohen, Sandro Galea;