In the field of public health, mental has had a great deal of relevance. This concept has been used extensively in the professional, academic, and political fields. Despite that, the different definitions of mental face significant epistemological and practical problems. These difficulties are encountered by those who try to specify the meaning of mental, the relationship between health and mental, and, consequently, how research and intervention actions are to be carried out in the field of mental health. In practice, the orientation of actions and research involving mental is not based on “universal” definitions in the field of public health. It is rather based on conceptions constructed from different approaches to the health-disease issue. This paper discusses the conceptions of mental that have been configured from the biomedical, behavioral, and socio-economic approaches, the notions of mind underlying these conceptions, and their implications for intervention in the field of public health.