Building collective well-being: challenges in the design and implementation of public policies on mental health

Abstract

This article forms part of an early-stage doctoral research project within the Government and Public Policy Program at the University of Costa Rica. It presents a reflection derived from the construction of a State of the Question, aimed at identifying, through a review of the academic literature, the principal challenges involved in the design and implementation of public mental health policies. The paper also examines the contribution of sociological neo-institutionalism as a theoretical framework for analyzing the structural, political, institutional, and cultural factors that shape public policy processes. It concludes with a synthesis of the contributions of Rittel and Webber, Daviter, and Fjellfeldt, who conceptualize certain policy issues as wicked problems, a perspective that has significant implications for understanding the policy cycle.To this end, an exploratory and analytical literature review was conducted to identify the main theoretical and methodological contributions related to the formulation and implementation of public mental health policies, with the purpose of providing a bibliographic foundation that can support future research in this field. Given that the study is in its initial phase, the article does not present final research findings. Instead, it synthesizes the principal challenges and barriers associated with the design of public policies in the field of mental health, identified during the development of the state of the question for the doctoral dissertation on which this work is based.