(Volume 4) - Mental Health Disorders - Vula - University of Cape Town

(Rootman & Ronson 2005, pS64). Differences in what constitutes literacy aretherefore related changes in the core skills required to engage effectively inbasic activities in different societies over time. With rising standards ofliteracy and skills, people have begun to speak of “literacies” with medialiteracy, computer literacy and health literacy becoming part of core skills incertain settings (Rootman & Ronson, 2005).Literacy is known to be associated with overall health and mental health,which occur by means of both direct and indirect mechanisms, as illustratedin Figure 8 below. Indirect mechanisms are seen to relate to the effects of lowliteracy on socio-economic status with literacy linked to lower incomes, higherunemployment and lower wages (Rootman and Ronson, 2005). While thereare no rigorous studies on the mental health effects of literacy interventions,improving literacy should plausibly improve both health (general and mental)and employment outcomes (Rootman and Ronson, 2005).Figure 8: Relationship between literacy and health(Source: Rootman & Ronson 2005, p.564)Conclusion‣ Literacy affects health, employment and income; while there is nogood-quality, empirical evidence that literacy interventions improvemental health, this is highly plausible.7. Food-security interventionsAs discussed in the review of evidence, food insecurity may affect mentalhealth directly as a consequence of nutritional deficiencies; or indirectly,43