As we kick off Mental Health Awareness Week 2026, Mark Rowland charts the progress we’ve made in raising awareness and understanding of mental health and asks, have we really reached peak awareness?
Location: United Kingdom
Mark Rowland
Last month, I read our blog from 2013, celebrating the 65th anniversary of the NHS. It describes how in 1946, mental health was not mentioned in the Chief Medical Officer’s annual report that year. Back then, patients were locked in asylums and subjected to treatments like prefrontal leucotomy surgery, which sought to physically remove parts of the brain thought to be defective.
That approach was legitimised by a public either ignorant about mental health or directly hostile to people living with mental illness.
After decades of anti-stigma campaigns, there is no question that attitudes and practice have changed for the better. But questions are being asked if we have now gone too far in raising awareness about mental health. These are important questions and I want to give a balanced view of the risks and benefits and how it needs to evolve and change.
Why is there so much current interest in mental health?
We started Mental Health Awareness Week in 2001. It began as small campaign but has grown to be one of the biggest awareness campaigns in the UK. Millions of people in workplaces, community, schools and families get involved each year.
The driving force behind increased interest has been people’s pent-up appetite to explore issues that affect them but are often shrouded in silence and shame. CS Lewis once said, ‘We read to know we are not alone’ and that is my best assessment as to why there has also been such an explosion in the public conversation on mental health; we are all in search of consolation and solidarity.
We forget that many people still live in emotional deserts. Over a third of young people calling Shout say they have no friends, family or trusted adult to talk to. Mental health campaigns help normalise struggles and narrow the gap between our inner and outer worlds.
Concerns about mental health awareness
Not all awareness campaigns are effective or positive, even if they are well-intentioned. We know that people from different backgrounds and cultures and have different experiences which affect the impact that mental health campaigns have.
Critics argue that the goal of mental health campaigns have been achieved because more people are aware of mental health issues. But the ultimate aim is to empower people to live well, not just spot the signs of distress. With only 13% of people saying they live with good mental health, there’s a long way to go.
Thoughtful academics, like Lucy Foulkes, have raised concerns about the psychological consequences of mental health awareness efforts. She cites some evidence in schools that mental health awareness efforts could be leading children to confuse the experience of difficult emotions with longer-term mental health problems, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Her work flags the risks around ‘nocebo’, whereby a negative expectation of treatment affects outcomes. Her hypothesis is that if children are being taught to expect mental health challenges, this itself increases the risk of experiencing psychiatric symptoms.
We agree that conversations about mental health with children need sensitivity - they should start with understanding emotions, rather than identifying disorders. Interventions like MyHappyMind show that you can reduce demand on mental health services, not by taking an illness focus but by nurturing positive school cultures and preparing children with an understanding and language to manage a spectrum of feelings and experiences.
Do awareness campaigns actually work?
The evidence is building that mental health campaigns can and have been effective in three key areas; reducing stigma, increasing help-seeking behaviour and positive behaviour change.
Campaigns like SeeMe and Time to Change1 have been shown to reduce stigma and improve mental health knowledge and attitudes towards people with mental health problems.
Queens University Belfast recently completed a review into studies of wider mental health awareness campaigns. They cite a review of 26 social media campaigns2. Not all were effective but of the ones that were, the outcomes most likely to improve before and after campaigns were on mental health attitudes and stigma, mental health knowledge, behaviour change and help-seeking for a mental health problem (in that order).
Campaigns that promote positive mental health like Act Belong Commit3 have also been evaluated and found effective in increasing openness and help-seeking behaviour. Mass media campaigns in other areas of health too have shown to be cost effective in reaching large audiences with a behaviour change message. 4
What is the role of mental health awareness campaigns?
Mental health awareness campaigns have an important role but they are not a silver bullet. According to the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine, only 40% of health outcomes are determined by how we behave – the rest are influenced by our social circumstances, environment and genetics.
But it is vital that we support active, curious and open conversations about mental health, especially given the rising scale of need. The NHS will not be able to expand to meet all this need so all of us have a role to play. Mental health campaigns are no longer just about awareness; they are like a spring board to further exploration and action. But if we only think about mental health once a year, we are not going to meaningfully turn the dial towards better mental health.
Do we still need mental health awareness?
The short answer is yes. As we set out here, we argue the answer is better mental health awareness not less. As I talk to employers and supporters, I know that shame and stigma still stalk our minds and culture like a grim reaper. There are also significant communities who haven’t yet engaged at all with the mental health conversation. We must find new ways to tell powerful stories and reach under-served audiences who often have a higher risk of mental health.
Campaigns of the future will look more like those that have galvanised millions to join the environmental movement. The environmental movement understood the need to both inspire individual actions, like recycling, and also campaign to change the drivers of nature decline and climate change. The mental health community must do the same. There are also many social drivers of poor mental health, like rising inequality, bullying and online harms that that must be tackled. We need social change as well as individual action.
It is vital for credible organisations, like Mental Health Foundation, to play a leading role in evolving and shaping the conversation on mental health. If we stepped away, it would leave the arena open for bad actors and increase the risks dramatically.
Ultimately, the goal of awareness campaigns cannot stop at knowledge, the future must be about change. This is why Action is the theme for Mental Health Awareness Week 2026.
We haven’t reached peak awareness - we’ve reached a tipping point where we must move on from describing problems to catalysing meaningful action.
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References
1. Henderson, C., Potts, L. & Robinson, E. J. Mental illness stigma after a decade of Time to Change England: inequalities as targets for further improvement. Eur. J. Public Health 30, 497–503 (2020).
2. Plackett, R., Steward, J. M., Kassianos, A. P., Duenger, M., Schartau, P., Sheringham, J., Cooper, S., Biddle, L., Kidger, J., & Walters, K. (2025). The Effectiveness of Social Media Campaigns in Improving Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Mental Health and Help-Seeking in High-Income Countries: Scoping Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 27(1), e68124.
3. Donovan, R. J., Drane, C. F., Santini, Z. I. & Jalleh, G. Act Belong Commit. Impact on help-seeking behaviours of a campaign perceived to decrease stigma and increase openness around mental health. Health Prom. J. Aust. 35, 1378–1385 (2024).
4. Wakefield, M. A., Loken, B., & Hornik, R. C. (2010). Use of mass media campaigns to change health behaviour. The lancet, 376(9748), 1261-1271.
5. Duthie, G., Reavley, N., Wright, J., & Morgan, A. (2024). The impact of media-based mental health campaigns on male help-seeking: a systematic review. Health Promotion International, 39(4), 1-25.