In our definition of mental health polices, we will follow the lead from the WHO Global Atlas report:

'Mental health policy is a specifically written document of the Government or Ministry of Health containing the goals for improving the mental health situation of the country, the priorities among those goals and the main directions for attaining them…... A Mental health policy may include the following components: advocacy, promotion, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation’.

On this issue, we will develop a EUphact by priority.

European Union policies and strategies

Against the backdrop the EU’s mandate to improve mental health, this section will provide an overview of the various strategies and actions that have been taken over the years. Insofar as these projects and actions have contributed to the body of evidence on effective mental health policies, their outcomes will be incorporated in the ‘evidence’ section.

The progress since the Finnish presidency in 1999 (‘no health without mental health’), culminating in the Commission’s intention to prepare a strategic document on mental health for adoption in spring 2007 will be described, as will the outcomes of the consultation process on the Commission’s Green Paper on Mental Health.

Where intergovernmental agreements and efforts –such as the WHO Europe Ministerial Conference on Mental Health and Helsinki Declaration in 2005- have been instrumental in advancing the commitment of EU Member States and/or the Commission, these will also be highlighted.

Evidence: effective policy approaches

Here, we will present evidence on effective measures as put forward via peer-reviewed publications and/or cross-national research efforts. These findings will also resonate in the section on national policies.

National mental health policies in Member States

Here, we will try to identify whether and how countries are taking the existing evidence and EU/intergovernmental frameworks into account in designing and implementing their national policies. This text will also incorporate the results of the EU-funded IMPHA (country overviews) and EPREMED (European Policy Information Research for Mental Disorders) projects, as well as the country overviews available through the WHO Mental Health Atlas 2005.