Monday, October 25, 2004

Pending Legislation Addresses Mental Health Treatment in Prisons
Article in the October Psychiatric Times - "The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2003 (S1194/HR2387) now before the U.S. Congress authorizes $100 million in each of the next two years to foster collaboration between criminal justice and mental health programs at state and local levels. Passed with bipartisan sponsorship and support in the Senate in October 2003, the House version of the bill is currently in committee in the House of Representatives. It would parcel out funds as seed grants, with matching state funds increasing over time, to joint applicants from criminal justice and mental health organizations. Initiatives eligible for funding include mental health courts that incorporate treatment components into sentencing; training programs for mental health and criminal justice personnel to improve recognition and responsiveness to mental illness in offenders; and programs that facilitate transition from incarceration to community and increase access to community-based mental health care."  
  

Mental-health champion dies at 84 (Missouri)
Story at The Missourian on Al Spradling Jr., a former Democratic state senator from Cape Girardeau who "pushed legislation and lawmaker investigations that helped transform a state mental-health system that had been doing little more than warehousing the mentally retarded."  
  

Self-Reported Frequent Mental Distress Among Adults -- United States, 1993--2001
Article in the current Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the Center for Disease Control - "Poor mental health is a major source of distress, disability, and social burden; in any given year, as many as one in five adults in the United States has a mental disorder. To identify differences among populations and factors contributing to poor mental health, CDC examined the prevalence of frequent mental distress (FMD) among U.S. adults by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), and sex, by using aggregate data from Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) surveys for 1993--2001. This report describes the results of that analysis, which indicated that the prevalence of FMD varied among racial/ethnic populations and increased substantially among whites and blacks. In addition, FMD was reported more frequently by women and by persons with low SES within each racial/ethnic population. Targeting adverse socioeconomic risk factors and improving access to mental health services might decrease FMD among adults and reduce racial/ethnic disparities in mental health..." See also the related news story at WebMD.  
  

New Yorkers' mental health visits rose little after 9/11
Center for the Advancement of Health press release at EurekAlert - "New Yorkers' use of mental health services rose only slightly during the year after the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks compared with the year before the attacks, a recent study suggests. But the number of mental health visits among people already receiving treatment increased after the attacks. The study is one of the few to look at long-term use of community mental health services within a population after a major catastrophic event, say Joseph A. Boscarino, Ph.D., M.P.H., and colleagues at the New York Academy of Medicine and Florida State University. Their findings appear in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry."  
  

Mental Health Concerns Resurface in the Chinese Community (California)
Pacific News Service story - "A recent attempted suicide by a Chinese American high school student and two apparent murder suicide attempts involving Chinese Americans have raised concerns among community groups. They feel that more needs to be done to dissolve the stigma in the community surrounding seeking mental health treatment. Additionally, many immigrants may be cut off from help due to language barriers..."  
  

Mental health care audits fuel dispute (Michigan)
Detroit News story - "The Livingston County Community Mental Health Services Authority is involved in a contract dispute with the state, the outcome of which could cost mental health service providers statewide hundreds of thousands of dollars. ... The Michigan Department of Community Health helps to fund health service programs that serve an estimated 1.5 million residents statewide. In 1998, the state department changed the way it funded community mental health programs. . What's being disputed in the Livingston County Circuit Court lawsuit is the way community mental health providers are supposed to account for their funding from the 1998-99 fiscal year..."