A/HRC/41/34 psychosocial, intellectual and cognitive disabilities, whether or not they are part of the labour force. The future focus of international investment and global mental health must delink mental health from productivity. The concept of well-being as an economic asset reflects a selective approach to the right to health and cannot be considered compliant with a rights-based approach to mental health. 4. Older persons 77. The global rise in life expectancy brings opportunities and challenges. The older generation is not only a conduit for family connection and wisdom; older persons also provide invaluable care and support for younger generations. 78. Older persons enrich family and community life, and their active involvement not only promotes healthy ageing but also makes a positive contribution to the development of the community and society in general. 79. At the same time, demographic and family changes require a wider range of support. They demand an age-friendly environment where older persons are valued and able to live active lives; connected, mobile and engaged with their social communities. The mental well-being of ageing populations faces a number of risks; some can be attributed to the prevalence of age-related degenerative conditions, such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, affecting both the biomedical and social prevalence of poor mental well-being. Many of the mental health issues faced by ageing populations, however, have shared risk factors, such as a decline in functional ability, experiences of bereavement, isolation or the loss of socioeconomic status that often accompanies retirement. The risk of abuse, such as in the excessive provision of psychotropic medications to older persons, both within and outside of institutional residential care settings, is also significant. Risks of this type also reveal the positive effect that interventions to promote healthy living conditions can have, such as working to ensure that older persons have the resources to achieve well-being, including security and freedoms, adequate housing, social support, inclusion programmes and community development programmes. This also includes palliative care and the right to age and to spend the end of one’s life in dignity. 5. Strengthening community relationships 80. The quality and strength of community relationships and civil society are of profound importance to mental health. A quality relationship includes social connectedness, a sense of belonging and opportunities to collaborate for health and social gain, such as improving living conditions, protecting the environment, gaining equitable access to resources and preventing displacement. The degree of community well-being is also determined by governance: political empowerment and strengthening civil society to increase the involvement of local people and communities in defining problems, and generating and implementing solutions. Empowering persons in a vulnerable situation so that they can participate on equal terms is an important factor in the promotion of mental health. Social exclusion, powerlessness, discrimination and other indicators of a lack of control or influence can cause major harm to both self-care and care for others. 81. The importance of nature to social relationships and community life is enshrined in many national constitutions. 34 More work is needed to understand how threats to the environment, such as climate change, and a lack of human engagement with the natural world may contribute to the subsequent breakdown of our “human ecosystems”: the loss of social and cultural resources and damage to community life. Being able to live with concern for and in relation to the natural world fulfils the psychological need for nature relatedness and is associated with positive outcomes for such problems as a lack of attention, anger, fatigue and sadness, and with higher levels of well-being and lower levels of psychological 34 See S. Borràs, “New transitions from human rights to the environment to the rights of nature” in Transnational Environmental Law, vol. 5, No. 1 (2016), pp. 113–143. 15