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Better But Not Well

Mental Health Policy in the United States since 1950

Richard G. Frank and Sherry A. Glied
foreword by Rosalynn Carter

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The past half-century has been marked by major changes in the treatment of mental illness: important advances in understanding mental illnesses, increases in spending on mental health care and support of people with mental illnesses, and the availability of new medications that are easier for the patient to tolerate. Although these changes have made things better for those who have mental illness, they are not quite enough.

In Better But Not Well, Richard G. Frank and Sherry A. Glied examine the well-being of people with mental illness in the United States over the past fifty years, addressing...

The past half-century has been marked by major changes in the treatment of mental illness: important advances in understanding mental illnesses, increases in spending on mental health care and support of people with mental illnesses, and the availability of new medications that are easier for the patient to tolerate. Although these changes have made things better for those who have mental illness, they are not quite enough.

In Better But Not Well, Richard G. Frank and Sherry A. Glied examine the well-being of people with mental illness in the United States over the past fifty years, addressing issues such as economics, treatment, standards of living, rights, and stigma. Marshaling a range of new empirical evidence, they first argue that people with mental illness—severe and persistent disorders as well as less serious mental health conditions—are faring better today than in the past. Improvements have come about for unheralded and unexpected reasons. Rather than being a result of more effective mental health treatments, progress has come from the growth of private health insurance and of mainstream social programs—such as Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, housing vouchers, and food stamps—and the development of new treatments that are easier for patients to tolerate and for physicians to manage.

The authors remind us that, despite the progress that has been made, this disadvantaged group remains worse off than most others in society. The "mainstreaming" of persons with mental illness has left a policy void, where governmental institutions responsible for meeting the needs of mental health patients lack resources and programmatic authority. To fill this void, Frank and Glied suggest that institutional resources be applied systematically and routinely to examine and address how federal and state programs affect the well-being of people with mental illness.

Reviews

Reviews

Offers many insights beneficial to the informed reader.

The authors are true to their word in providing an excellent overview of changes in the last 50 years. They provide compelling evidence that the condition of many, if not most, persons with mental illness has improved during that period.

Will be of greatest interest to students of mental health economics, services, and policy, but clinicians interested in the relationship between health policy and everyday practice will also find it useful.

Provides a necessary counterpart to much overenthusiastic optimism surrounding recent development in psychopharmacology and the neurosciences.

Offers a fascinating... historical analysis of mental health policy.

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
208
ISBN
9780801884436
Illustration Description
13 b&w illus.
Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
1. Introduction
2. The Population with Mental Illness
3. The Evolving Technology of Mental Health Care
4. Health Care Financing and Income Support
5. The Supply of Mental Health Services
6

Foreword
Preface
1. Introduction
2. The Population with Mental Illness
3. The Evolving Technology of Mental Health Care
4. Health Care Financing and Income Support
5. The Supply of Mental Health Services
6. Policy Making in Mental Health: Integration, Mainstreaming, and Shifting Institutions
7. Assessing the Well-being of People with Mental Illness
8. Looking Forward: Improving the Well-being of People with Mental Illness
Notes
References
Index

Author Bios
Featured Contributor

Richard G. Frank, Ph.D.

Richard G. Frank is the Morris Professor of Health Economics at Harvard University Medical School and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Featured Contributor

Sherry A. Glied, Ph.D.

Sherry A. Glied is a professor in and chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.