Mental Health Services A Public Health Perspective

This revised and expanded third edition text utilizes a public health framework and the latest epidemiological, treatment, and service systems research to promote a comprehensive understanding of the organization, financing, and delivery of mental health and substance abuse services in the United States. Written by national experts in the field, this timely work will provide policymakers, administrators, clinicians, and public health and behavioral health graduate students with the knowledge base needed to manage and transform mental health service systems, both nationally and locally. The book is unique in providing a public health framework of the most significant issues facing mental health policy makers, administrators, planners, and practitioners. It combines issues (e.g., evaluation; law; ethnicity) that extend across different age groups, treatment settings, and disorders, with issues that are population and disorder specific. The publication of this book is timely for those involved with the debate over national health care reform legislation, and provides important and timely information (on populations at-risk for mental disorders, services, and systems issues) for those responsible for implementing policies and programs resulting from this reform effort.

In this volume, authorities from around the United States and from a variety of perspectives analyze and discuss key topics in women's mental health, including empowerment, substance abuse, severe mental illness and interpersonal violence. Issues examined in the first part focus on service delivery - for example, the organizational structure of service delivery, gender and racial service disparities, and challenges women face as mental health administrators. Contributors to Part Two explore special issues and populations, including women who have survived trauma such as sexual abuse, and women with mental disorders who are in prison.

A Public Health Perspective of Women’s Mental Health Edited by Bruce Lubotsky Levin and Marion Ann Becker As many as one-half of all women in the U.S. will experience some form of mental illness in their lives—an especially distressing fact when health care budgets are in flux, adding to existing disparities and unmet health needs. Written from a unique multidisciplinary framework, A Public Health Perspective of Women’s Mental Health addresses today’s most pressing mental health challenges: effective treatment, efficient prevention, equal access, improved service delivery, and stronger public policy. Eminent clinicians, researchers, academicians, and advocates examine the effects of mental illness on women’s lives and discuss the scope of clinical and service delivery issues affecting women, focusing on these major areas: Epidemiology of mental disorders in girls, female adolescents, adult women, and older women. Selected disorders of particular concern to women, including depression and postpartum depression, eating disorders, menopause, chemical dependence, and HIV/AIDS. Mental health needs of women in the workplace, rural areas, and prisons. Racial and ethnic disparities and their impact on service delivery. Parenting and recovery issues in mothers with mental illness. Women’s mental health services in an era of evidence-based medicine. Improving women’s health in today’s technological climate. A Public Health Perspective of Women’s Mental Health is a resource of immediate importance to professionals and graduate students in the public health, health administration, health disparities, social work, behavioral health, and health services research fields, as well as nursing, community/health psychology and community/public psychiatry.

A Public Health Perspective of Women’s Mental Health Edited by Bruce Lubotsky Levin and Marion Ann Becker As many as one-half of all women in the U.S. will experience some form of mental illness in their lives—an especially distressing fact when health care budgets are in flux, adding to existing disparities and unmet health needs. Written from a unique multidisciplinary framework, A Public Health Perspective of Women’s Mental Health addresses today’s most pressing mental health challenges: effective treatment, efficient prevention, equal access, improved service delivery, and stronger public policy. Eminent clinicians, researchers, academicians, and advocates examine the effects of mental illness on women’s lives and discuss the scope of clinical and service delivery issues affecting women, focusing on these major areas: Epidemiology of mental disorders in girls, female adolescents, adult women, and older women. Selected disorders of particular concern to women, including depression and postpartum depression, eating disorders, menopause, chemical dependence, and HIV/AIDS. Mental health needs of women in the workplace, rural areas, and prisons. Racial and ethnic disparities and their impact on service delivery. Parenting and recovery issues in mothers with mental illness. Women’s mental health services in an era of evidence-based medicine. Improving women’s health in today’s technological climate. A Public Health Perspective of Women’s Mental Health is a resource of immediate importance to professionals and graduate students in the public health, health administration, health disparities, social work, behavioral health, and health services research fields, as well as nursing, community/health psychology and community/public psychiatry.

For many children, schools are the main or only providers of mental health services. In this visionary and comprehensive book, two nationally known experts describe a new approach to school-based mental health—one that better serves students, maximizes resources, and promotes academic performance. The authors describe how educators can effectively coordinate internal and external resources to support a healthy school environment and help at-risk students overcome barriers to learning. School leaders, psychologists, counselors, and policy makers will find essential guidance, including: • An overview of the history and current state of school mental health programs, discussing major issues confronting the field • Strategies for effective school-based initiatives, including addressing behavior issues, introducing classroom-based activities, and coordinating with community resources • A call to action for higher-quality mental health programming across public schools—including how collaboration, research, and advocacy can make a difference Gain the knowledge you need to develop or improve your school's mental health program to better serve both the academic and mental health needs of your students!

Bringing together treatment and referral advice from existing guidelines, this text aims to improve access to services and recognition of common mental health disorders in adults and provide advice on the principles that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local care pathways.

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.