Twenty-One Reasons for Implementing the Act-Belong-Commit-'ABCs of Mental Health' Campaign.

Robert J Donovan,Catherine F Drane,Amberlee Nicholas,Charlotte Meilstrup,Vibeke J Koushede,Line Nielsen,Ziggi Ivan Santini,Julia Anwar-Mchenry,Carsten Hinrichsen

doi:10.3390/ijerph182111095

Abstract

While there has been increased attention worldwide on mental health promotion over the past two decades, what is lacking in many countries around the globe is practical knowledge of what constitutes a population-wide mental health promotion campaign, and how such a campaign can be implemented. This paper provides such knowledge based on the development, implementation and evaluation of the Act-Belong-Commit campaign, the world’s first comprehensive population-wide public mental health promotion campaign which was launched in 2008 in Western Australia. Given the learnings from the full-scale implementation and evaluation of the campaign in Western Australia and its expansion nationally and internationally, along with the continuing and expanding evidence base for the campaign constructs, we crystallise 21 reasons why jurisdictions who wish to achieve the goals of the WHO and adopt the recommendations of the European framework on mental health and wellbeing should consider adopting or adapting Act-Belong-Commit when considering implementing a public mental health promotion campaign.

Highlights

Effective mental health promotion is essential to improving population mental health and wellbeing and reducing the impact and burden of mental ill health [1,2]
The Act-Belong-Commit messages were derived from primary research with members of the general population, along with a subsequent search of the existing literature which showed that laypersons’ perceptions of factors that enhanced or undermined mental health were consistent with the scientific evidence [19,22,24]
The simplicity is evident in the ‘do’ articulations of the three domains: do something; do something with someone; do something meaningful. Given this inherent simplicity and ease of understanding, Act-Belong-Commit helps reduce the complexity often associated with mental health and mental health promotion and offers a simple and efficient way of promoting mental health literacy in the population as well as in organisations [51,52]

Summary

Introduction

Effective mental health promotion is essential to improving population mental health and wellbeing and reducing the impact and burden of mental ill health [1,2]. Act-Belong-Commit (ABC) is an evidence-based mental health promotion program making extensive use of social franchising to promote the mental health and wellbeing of individuals and communities [19,20]. Act-Belong-Commit targets individuals with respect to engaging in activities that strengthen and maintain good mental health whilst, at the same time, targeting organisations that offer mentally healthy activities to act as ‘social franchises’ for the campaign [20], promoting the messages internally to their staff and/or externally to their clients or local communities. The following 21 reasons for adopting the Act-Belong-Commit campaign provide an overview of the positive attributes and strengths of the campaign They provide a basis for comparison with other relatively recently developed programs (albeit few in number) that promote mental health and wellbeing. ‘C’ lists the variety of social and health impacts that the campaign can have on the target audiences and society overall

Defining Characteristics of the Campaign and Campaign Messages

Implementation Strengths and Facilitators

Beneficial Outcomes

Conclusions

Findings