Establishing a core set of national, sustainable mental health indicators for adults in Scotland

Improving mental health is a national public health priority for Scotland. To date, there has
been no assessment of the overall mental health of Scotland’s population, without which it is
difficult to determine whether mental health is improving in Scotland or to track progress.
To this end, NHS Health Scotland was commissioned by the Scottish Government’s
National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Well-being to establish a core set of
national, sustainable mental health indicators to support the Scottish Government’s drive on
mental health improvement, as part of overall health improvement. These indicators, which
will monitor the state of mental health in Scotland at a national level, are vital to the
development of a comprehensive health monitoring system (see
www.healthscotland.com/understanding/population/mental-health-indicators.aspx for further
information on the indicators work).
The Indicators of Mental Health Programme has taken the term mental health to be an
overarching term covering both mental health problems and positive mental health.
Accordingly, this work has established mental health indicators that encompass both mental
health problems and positive mental health.