What's Inside:
Study Shows Mental Illness Often Begins in Youth, Treatment Delays Worsen Issues

Advocacy Improves Grim Earlier Federal Outlook

NMHA Hosts Meetings on New Medicare Part D Benefit

First Person Perspective: What’s the Mission of the Mental Health System?

Journalists Attend NMHA Teleconference on Children’s Mental Health

Cruise’s “War of the Words” Fuels Stigma, Misinformation

NMHA’s 2005 Meeting Promotes Justice, System Changes

Research Notes

NMHA Tools You Can Use

Journalist Jane Pauley accepted NMHA’s 2005 William Styron Award at the Association’s 2005 Annual Conference.

One-half of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14, and despite effective treatments for the disorders, there are long delays between the onset of symptoms and seeking treatment, according to the largest survey ever of the nation’s mental health, published in the June 6 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

These treatment delays —which can span decades— lead to more severe and difficult - to -treat illnesses and to co-occurring disorders. And, once people do get treatment,few receive care that meets “minimally accepted standard” for mental health treatment, researchers say.

The landmark study, called the “National Comorbidity Survey Replication,” was led by Harvard University, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Intramural Research Program and the University of Michigan. Based on interviews with 9,282 randomly selected American adults, this survey is an expanded follow-up to the 1990 “National Comorbidity Survey,” designed to measure the severity and prevalence of mental illness, and the quality of treatment.

“There are many important messages from this study,” said NIMH Director Thomas Insel, M.D. “But perhaps none as important as the recognition that mental disorders are the chronic disorders of young people in the U.S.”

In fact, anxiety disorders often begin in late childhood, mood disorders in late adolescence and substance abuse in the early 20s, with three-quarters of all lifetime cases beginning by age 24...complete article

Advocacy Improves Grim Earlier Federal Outlook

With Congress nearing its summer recess, it’s time to consider the challenges we’ve faced this year on federal policy issues, our hard-won progress and the advocacy work that’s still ahead. Those challenges include:

• The threat that implementation of a Medicare prescription drug law could actually harm many consumers.
• Proposals for fundamentally altering and deeply cutting the Medicaid program.
• The Bush Administration’s discretionary budget proposal, which would slash key federal housing programs that support consumers, mental health spending through the Center for Mental Health Services, youth programming through the Department of Justice and many other federal social services programs...complete article