The field of public mental health has been defined by an expert group convened by the Nordic School of Public Health (NHV) as encompassing the experience, occurrence, distribution and trajectories of positive mental health and mental health problems and their determinants; mental health promotion and prevention of mental disorders; as well as mental health system policies, governance and organization. The mental health priorities of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2010 signalled a mutual Nordic exchange of knowledge in the following thematic areas: child and adolescent mental health; working life and mental health; mental health in older people; strengthening the role of primary care in mental health service provision; stronger involvement of users and carers; and reduction of use of coercion in psychiatric care. Efforts to realize these priorities included commissioning the Nordic Research Academy for Mental Health, an NHV-based network of research institutions with a common interest in mental health research across the Nordic countries, to develop, organize and follow-up projects on public mental health. The research initiatives included mental health policy analysis, register-based research and research focused on the users' perspective in a Nordic context, as well as EU-level research policy analysis. The public mental health research conducted at the NHV highlighted the complexity of mental health and emphasized that the broad determinants of mental health need to be increasingly addressed in both public health research and practice. For example, health promotion actions, improved access to health care, a healthy alcohol policy and prevention of suicides and violence are all needed to reduce the life expectancy gap - a red flag indicator of public health inequalities. By exchanging knowledge and best practice, the collaboration between the Nordic countries contributes to the welfare of the region. The expertise and traditions developed at the NHV are of significant importance in this work.

Boken ger en presentation av olika socialvetenskapliga perspektiv på funktionshinder. Sådana perspektiv fokuserar på, och ger en fördjupad förståelse för, de livsvillkor som många personer med funktionsnedsättning har. Det kan gälla boende, sysselsättning, transporter, kontakter med hälso- och sjukvården samt välfärdsmyndigheter med mera - kort sagt, att kunna leva som en fullvärdig medborgare. Socialvetenskapliga perspektiv på funktionshinder bygger på en omfattande genomgång av tidigare forskning, intervjuer och material från myndigheter och organisationer.

Socialvetenskapliga perspektiv på funktionshinder vänder sig till personer som studerar samhälls- och beteendevetenskapliga ämnen, socialt arbete och vårdvetenskap samt personer som är yrkesverksamma eller föreningsaktiva inom funktionshindersområdet.

The aim of this article was to compare disability policies in Japan and Sweden. Social protection in the two countries has taken different directions. Policy orientation in Japan is 'productivist', paternalistic, family-oriented, and firmly involves medical expertise in assessing eligibility to disability services. In practice, social services in Japan is the result of negotiations between social service staff at the local level, volunteer agencies and private contributors. In Sweden, social services, were established as social rights, financed by public money, and distributed by public sector agencies or out-sourced to private providers. Such support, assessed by social workers, were intended to facilitate daily life and achieve "good living conditions". While Japan's disability services are characterized by the medical model and improving physical accessibility, practices in Sweden are based on a social relational model perspective of disability services combined with increasing 'de servingne ss ethics'.

This paper focuses on tensions between activation principles andmedicalisation in the Swedish sickness insurance and its implications forfrontline caseworkers in Social Security Agencies and Public EmploymentServices. The right to sickness cash benefits has become stricter and moreconditioned upon the person’s work ability and employability. The paperdescribes recent policy changes towards activation and stricter entitlementcriteria for sickness benefits policy and explores the consequences of suchnew activation policies in terms of changed work modes for caseworkersdealing with long-term sick people’s return-to-work process. It is concludedthat on the one hand frontline work contains a significant portion ofdiscretion and professional assessment of work abilities, and on the otherhand rule-bound administrative work. Furthermore, frontline workers needto apply organisational professionalism as inter-organisational cooperationis required in order to support long-term sick people to return-to-work.Medicalisation of ill-health, manifested in the right to sickness benefits hasnot been substantially circumscribed by new activation policies in thesickness insurance.

As it is the case in many European countries, psychosocial disabilities have become an important concern in Sweden. Persons with psychosocial disabilities' experiences of various societal domains such as school, work, family life, leisure activities and contact with welfare agencies need a complex analysis which takes into account both personal and contextual factors. This article draws on 15 interviews with informants with psychosocial disabilities and discusses their experiences and the difficulties that they met during their lives. These experiences are conceptualised with the framework of "active citizenship" developed by Hvinden et al. (2016), which distinguishes three core dimensions of active citizenship: security, influence and autonomy. The empirically grounded article discusses the opportunities and barriers that encourage or hamper persons with psychosocial disabilities to be active citizens in the Swedish welfare state and underlines some of the main challenges that stand in the way of their "full and effective participation in society" (CRPD, article 1).

This article analyzes the state of community mental health services for people with psychiatric disabilities and the interplay between different organizational levels. The study is based on document analysis and interviews with stakeholders in 10 Swedish municipalities. The results show how systems are slow to change and are linked to local traditions. The services are often delivered in closed settings, and the organizations struggle to meet the needs of a new generation of users. There is a gap between local systems and national policies because the latter pays attention to the attributes of a recovery approach.

By the adoption of the United Nation Convention on the Rights of Personswith Disabilities, many countries have committed to providing conditionsfor persons with disabilities to actively participate in the community. Thisarticle explores the meaning of active citizenship for persons withpsychosocial disabilities and focuses in particular on the role of thestate. Illustrated with examples from Sweden, the analysis underlines thecomplexity of the relationship between mental health and society bytaking into account several models of disability, different conceptions ofcitizenship and the broader socio-economic context. We suggest thatthe use of a dynamic approach to psychosocial disabilities is appropriatefor dealing with the manifold issue of mental health in welfare states. Inconclusion, we point at important challenges facing the realization offull inclusion and citizenship in contemporary societies.

By the adoption of the United Nation Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), many European countries have committed to providing conditions for persons with disabilities to actively participate in the community. This paper sets out to explore the relevance of ‘Active Citizenship’ for persons with psychosocial disabilities with a focus on the role of the state through social policy. The analysis points at the complexity of the relationship between mental health issues and society by taking into account various conceptual models of disability, but also different conceptions of the citizen. Furthermore, the article discusses the role of the state through the analysis of main international reports and strategies on mental health in Europe and concludes on pointing at important challenges facing the realisation of the goal of full inclusion and Active Citizenship.