Beware the Educational Fix: Limitations of Efforts to Promote Mental Health Literacy

Public health professionals seek to promote health literacy through education. In the mental health arena, such approaches have included teaching primary care gatekeepers to screen for early identification of suicide risk and teaching members of the general public to engage peers in need of mental health treatment and guide them into evidence-based care. Educational positivism is the belief that this pedagogic enterprise is unlimited, leading to a “more is better” approach. Despite its promise, however, educational approaches may have muted effects. Students in discrete training programs are often overwhelmed by too much information. Moreover, the effects of distributed training programs, which usually involve repeated training over longer periods, compete with already existing schemes of health action as well as the cacophony of other channels of information. Strategies to address these concerns are described.