Our Health Policy Matters

For the past several months, I've been traveling around the country for Mental Health America. I have been delivering two messages.  The first is that it was a mistake to use a "danger to self or others" standard as a trigger to treatment for people with serious mental illnesses.  Because this has made mental illnesses the only chronic diseases we wait until Stage 4 to treat, and then often only through incarceration. The second is that if we are to treat people with mental illnesses the same way we treat people with other chronic conditions, we have to act before Stage 4.  We have to start with prevention and then invest in early identification and intervention.  We have to integrate health, behavioral health, and other services.  And we have to give people an opportunity to recover at all stages in the disease process. May is  Mental Health Month . Since 1949, it has been a signature program of Mental Health America, formerly known as the National Mental Health