Illness is a universal phenomenon. Regardless of culture, class or age, it’s understood as a cause for help and empathy. Yet all that understanding disappears the moment the word “mental” precedes the word “illness”. Stigma replaces concern, and marginalization replaces treatment. In 2018, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) created a campaign that encouraged people to change their discriminatory mindset towards mental illness.

 

Coinciding with mental health week, the campaign launched through a number of outlets. Billboards and transit shelters posed pointed thought provoking questions. A branded content series featured harrowing stories of people who experienced the gaps between society’s views of physical and mental illness. On television and social a video execution prompted viewers to recognize their own assumptions of mental illness. The campaign was led online with #MentalHealthisHealth which was picked up not just in Canada, but around the world.