Mental Health as Public Health: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Ethics of Prevention

In recent years there has been increased recognition of the global burden of mental disorders, which in turn has led to the expansion of preventive initiatives at the community and population levels. The application of such public health approaches to mental health raises a number of important ethical questions. The aim of this collection is to address these newly emerging issues, with special attention to the principle of prevention and the distinctive ethical challenges in mental health. The collection brings together an interdisciplinary group of experts in bioethics, mental health, public health, and global health.

Compared to other public health initiatives, those directed towards mental health are relatively new and have yet to receive sustained ethical analysis. This is the first edited volume to highlight the distinctive ethical issues surrounding public mental health.The individual chapters contain cutting-edge, original research by an interdisciplinary collection of authors, including experts in bioethics, mental health, public health, and global health.

1. Introduction Jennifer Radden and Kelso Cratsley 2. Public mental health ethics: an overview Kelso Cratsley and Jennifer Radden 3. Is coercion ever beneficent? Public health ethics in early intervention and prevention for mental health Alex McKeown, Rose Mortimer, Arianna Manzini and Ilina Singh 4. Public mental health across cultures: the ethics of primary prevention of depression, focusing on the Dakhla Oasis of Egypt Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed and Rachel Bingham 5. Ethical considerations for conducting cross-cultural biological psychiatry and prevention research on depression among adolescents in low- and middle-income countries Kamal Gautam, Gloria A. Pedersen, Syed Shabab Wahid and Brandon A. Kohrt 6. International and cross-cultural parenting research and intervention ethics Rebecca S. Hock, Elizabeth J. Levey, Christine E. Cooper-Vince and Benjamin L. Harris 7. Conceptual and ethical problems in screening for major depressive disorder Dany Lamothe and Mona Gupta 8. Machine learning and suicide prevention: considering context as a guide to ethical design Phoebe Friesen and Katie O’Leary 9. The ethics of early identification and intervention in psychosis Charlotte A. L. Marriott and Matthew R. Broome 10. Preparing for the unthinkable? The prevention of posttraumatic stress disorder and the limits of positive psychology Ulrich Koch 11. Going too far? How the public health anti-obesity drives could cause harm by promoting eating disorders Jacinta O.A. Tan, Suzana Corciova and Dasha Nicholls 12. Prevention in prayer camps? The ethics of government engagement in Ghana’s 2012 mental health legislation Lauren A. Taylor 13. Public mental health without the health? Challenges and contributions from the Mad Pride and neurodiversity paradigms Ginger A. Hoffman