A review of health and mental well-being indicators and its assessment in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Health and mental well-being are shaped by multiple factors which should be considered for a wholistic assessment. This need is strengthened considering that health is not just the absence of illness but a complete state of well-being. This fact leads to a sharp turn to psychological measures for understanding and ascertaining the construct which has been explored extensively in developed countries. Understanding the construct through the sub-Saharan African lense becomes necessary for accuracy in the assessment to improve the population’s health mental-well-being and to reduce the risk of those impending effects in case of the reverse. With the need for comprehension across multiple factors, scientific consensus is considered necessary for reflexivity and applicability, deployable at medium-scale level. Adapting the POWER framework while leveraging the Web of Science data base complemented with random Google-led searches, this paper reviewed related literature on mental health and well-being revealing that the construct is fast gaining attention in sub-Saharan African space with heavy reliance on western-developed/validated assessment instruments majorly deployed as paper-pencil. The adaptive forms which are largely non-existent becomes a direction for research considering the need for accuracy in mental well-being and a framework for action to ensure transdisciplinary science of sustainability which is fast-gaining relevance for tackling complex problems in a bid to promote health and mental well-being in a targeted population.