We will first examine whether seeking help for depression and schizophrenia from mental health professionals is nowadays more accepted among the German public than it used to be 30 years ago. Next, we will explore whether changes in help-seeking preferences between 1990 and 2020 are specific to mental health professions or are part of changes in attitudes to professional help-seeking in general. Finally, we will study whether a temporal relationship does exist between the advent of awareness-raising and anti-stigma campaigns after the turn of the millennium and changes in the acceptance of mental health care.

In 1990 (n = 2044), 2001 (n = 4005), 2011 (n = 1984) and 2020 (n = 2449) methodologically identical population-based surveys were conducted in Germany. After presentation of an unlabelled case vignette depicting someone with either schizophrenia or depression, we asked about help-seeking recommendations for the person described.

The German public's readiness to recommend seeking help from mental health professionals has markedly grown over the past 30 years. In contrast, in the eyes of the public, turning to a general practitioner has become only slightly more, consulting a priest even less advisable than it used to be three decades ago. Seeing a naturopath is seen with markedly less disapproval today compared to 1990, but explicit recommendation of this helping source has not increased correspondingly in. The most pronounced increase in the German public's propensity to recommend seeking help from mental health professionals occurred already in the 1990s, i.e. before efforts to heighten public awareness had started.

Today, the German public is more in favour of mental health professionals than it used to be three decades ago. This seems to be a specific trend, and not to reflecting an increasing propensity towards professional help-seeking in general. Our findings counter the narrative that mental health communication efforts and initiatives have created more favourable attitudes towards mental health care among the public, since the observed changes in attitudes have preceded any campaigns. Instead, we tend to interpret the rise of the popularity of mental health professionals as a reflection of general cultural changes that have taken place over the past decades in Germany, as in other western countries.

To examine the trend in social inequality in low intake of vegetables among adolescents in Denmark from 2002 to 2014 using occupational social class (OSC) as socio-economic indicator.

Repeated cross-sectional school surveys including four waves of data collection in 2002–2014. The analyses focused on absolute social inequality (difference between high and low OSC in low vegetable intake) as well as relative social inequality (OR for low vegetable intake by OSC).

The nationally representative Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in Denmark.

The study population was 11–15-year olds (n 17 243).

Low intake of vegetables was defined as less than weekly intake measured by food frequency items. OSC was measured by student reports of parents’ occupation. The proportion of participants who reported eating vegetables less than once weekly was 8·9 %, with a notable decrease from 11·9 % in 2002 to 5·9 % in 2014. The OR (95 % CI) for less than weekly vegetable intake was 2·28 (1·98, 2·63) in the middle compared with high OSC and 3·12 (2·67, 3·66) in the low compared with high OSC. The absolute social inequality in low vegetable intake decreased from 2002 to 2014 but the relative social inequality remained unchanged.

The study underscores that it is important to address socio-economic factors in future efforts to promote vegetable intake among adolescents. The statistical analyses of social inequality in vegetable intake demonstrate that it is important to address both absolute and relative social inequality as these two phenomena may develop differently.

Low and middle income countries share a heavy burden of suicide with about three in every four suicides occurring in these countries. Mexico has witnessed a growing trend in suicide deaths; if this trend is not simply a reflection of better reporting of suicide on death certificates, then this increase should logically be accompanied by an increasing trend in suicide ideation, plan and attempts, but we lack information on the trends for suicide ideation, plan and attempt for this period. We therefore aim to report changes for suicidal behaviour for the period 2001–2013 in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area.

Using two cross-sectional surveys conducted in Mexico in 2001 and 2013, we report the lifetime and 12-month prevalence of suicide ideation, plan and attempt and changes in treatment for these problems among respondents aged 19–26 living in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area 12 years apart. To estimate the changes in prevalence for each outcome, we used generalised linear models to calculate prevalence ratios (PR; the prevalence rate in the exposed (year 2013) divided by the prevalence rate in the unexposed (year 2001–2002), adjusting for sociodemographic variables.

While increases in the prevalence are noted everywhere, statistical comparisons only found differences for lifetime ideation (PR = 3.1; 95% CI = 1.7–5.8) and a borderline difference for suicide attempt (PR = 2.2; 95% CI = 1.0–4.9). No attempt within the last 12-months was reported in 2001, but the prevalence in 2013 reached 1.5% (18 cases). While PRs for 12-month prevalence were all above the null, none reached statistically significant differences. During this 12-year period, the distribution of mental disorders and the use of services for mental disorders among suicide ideators, planners and attempters did not change in any noticeable way.

The limitations of our data are the small number of participants in the 2001 survey, the low follow-up rate for the survey in 2013 and that while representative from one city it does not represent the whole country. These findings suggest that suicide ideation and attempt may have increased during this 12-year period in the Mexico City metropolitan area, but this increase did not lead to more use of mental health care services. This information, coupled with the long-term trend of increasing suicide death rates in the country, draw a worrisome and neglected scenario for our youth in this region. Urgent measures, following the recent WHO guidelines for suicide prevention, must not be postponed.