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

5. Pre-school (access to affordable, high-quality pre-school facilities);and6. Recreation (access to a range of sports and other recreationalfacilities).Furthermore, interventions in these areas should aim to increase social capitaland employment: both significant determinants of mental health, while theliterature review also identified particular groups that are at increasedrisk for mental illness as follows:‣ The unemployed and underemployed‣ Women (Depression and Generalised Anxiety)‣ Men (Substance use disorders)‣ People living in poverty‣ Single parents‣ People with chronic illness (HIV and other)‣ RefugeesCertain “critical periods”, where particular stages of the life-cycle areassociated with higher risks for mental illness (and greater potential forpreventive interventions), were identified. These include: early childhood,adolescence, early adulthood, and the peripartum period (the periodsurrounding child birth).Recommended interventionsThe proposed recommendations were derived from an analysis of risk factorsand evidence for interventions; an identification of gaps in the currentprogrammes; and an examination of the policy context in the Western CapeProvince. It should be noted, however, that several departments of theProvincial Government of the Western Cape are already undertaking manyinterventions in the focus areas of this report. The recommendations thatfollow here are therefore intended to contribute to this work. Moreover, owingto the short time allocated to this project, consultation with all the relevantgovernment departments has not been possible and the recommendationspresented here are thus equally contingent on further discussion at theDevelopment and Health Summit, scheduled for June 2007.Only the types of interventions are presented in this brief summary; fordetails on how these interventions could be implemented, the reader isdirected to the relevant section below. In the CD version of the Report, eachtopic is hyperlinked to the relevant section in the report itself. For thereader’s convenience, key points are also highlighted within the text.Interventions which have been underlined indicate that theserecommendations are based on strong evidence. Those references which havenot been underlined have not been adequately researched, but are consideredvery promising.- 7 -