Preventive mental health care has been a long overlooked issue, until recently. For decades, the United States has invested heavily in addressing mental health crises via hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and incarceration. However, it has underfunded prevention programs aimed to stop many of these issues before they develop into crises. Policymakers and public health experts are now speaking out about how the U.S.’s investment in crisis response is costly – both fiscally and in human lives and potential – given that a large number of mental health crises are preventable if appropriate preventive mental health services are delivered.
In a recent piece published by several researchers, there was a call for building a robust national prevention infrastructure that prioritizes preventive mental health care as much as it prioritizes vaccinations or cancer screenings. That means also investing in early childhood support, implementing social-emotional learning programs in schools, implementing anti-bullying initiatives, and developing programs in communities to strengthen families and build resiliency prior to them having to manage through crises. Additionally, data tracking of loneliness, trauma and discrimination will need to occur with the same emphasis as we currently do for tracking physical health risk.
The drive for additional preventive mental health care services is in part based on the alarming statistics showing that nearly 20% of U.S. adults have a mental health disorder, yet most of them do not receive timely services. As such, by the time someone presents for crisis care – they often have lost their job, their partner, and years of being able to manage their lives successfully. Advocates assert that preventive mental health services are an essential component of unlocking the potential of each citizen and thus promoting the future viability of our society.
The service gap most clearly shows itself in families, and parents often feel as though they are alone when noticing early evidence of mental health issues in their children (evidence of withdrawal, irritability, and self-harm). In many cases, early mental health prevention services are too far away, unavailable, or entirely unknown to them. And for many families of color, low-income families, or families living in rural areas, the barriers they face converting relatively manageable levels of stress into chronic and/or serious illness are even greater than for other families across the country.
At the federal governmental level, changes in policy under the current administration will further complicate the landscape of mental health care. The proposal to re-structure federal agencies and to reduce the level of funding available for behavioral health could potentially compromise the development of early mental health prevention programming at a time when a great deal of momentum has developed to support mental health prevention. Policy experts caution that the first area of programming that is cut on the federal level is always early mental health prevention and is the last program to be funded when dollars become available.
Despite this, community organizations in cities, states, and local non profits are continuing to create local coalitions and begin to establish early mental health prevention programming as part of after-school activities, mentoring programs, housing supports, and recreation activities, because early mental health prevention can be a practical, community-based service.
The ultimate goal of all early mental health prevention programs is to ensure that every person has access to a safe environment, a supportive relationship with appealing adults, and access to information that allows them to manage the stresses in their lives before the stress they are experiencing becomes impossible to bear. This vision is one to which many advocates are committed to helping.
Source: Preventive care must include mental and behavioral disorders – STAT News
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