Health and homosexuality: a world-view

Abstract

InternatIonal PsychIatry Volume 10 Number 2 may 2013 nexus (family therapy, occupational therapy, social support). More broadly, psychiatric public health should address the social matrix at a population level; such a therapeutic framework is provided by the ‘ecological public health’ articulated by Lang & Rayner (2012), which integrates material, bio logical, social and cultural aspects in understanding the determinants of disease. This raises the issue of the purpose of mental health law, which tends to relate to ‘risk’. Attention is therefore narrowed to individuals, but this forecloses consideration of those social factors that have brought a person before the law or a mental health review tribunal. There are examples in medicine of the healthpromoting use of law, such as the restriction of tobacco advertising and in Scotland the minimum pricing of alcohol. The Marmot review found social inequality to be detrimental to physical and mental health (Marmot et al, 2010). Perhaps greater public funds should be dedicated to policies or laws that modify the ‘meaningful’ aspects of the social matrix in the promotion of mental well-being.