This report sets out the contribution that mental health and mental illness make to a wide range of health and social outcomes and shows how a greater focus on mental health as a determinant can help to explain outcomes, for individuals and for communities, which cannot be wholly accounted for by material and other factors. The limitations of classical risk factors . health behaviour, lifestyle and low income have prompted a growing interest in what protects health in the face of adversity and in the determinants of health, as distinct from the determinants of illness (Harrison et al 2004;.
