National Institute of Mental Health is an agency formed onApril 14 in 1949. It is located in Bethesda, Maryland and it has an annualbudget of 1.5 billion dollars. The director of agency is Thomas R. Insel whilethe deputy director is Philip S. Wang. National Institute of Mental Health’sparent agency is National Institutes of Health. This is one of the 27 differentinstitutes which together constitute the National Institutes of Health. The overallparent agency for all of them put together is an agency which is responsiblefor all different types of health related and biomedical services and it isalso an agency of the United States Department of Health. National Institute ofMental Health is the world’s biggest organization when it comes to dealing withall matters related to mental illness. Its main goal is to clarify all theanswers related to mental illnesses by utilizing clinical and basic forms ofresearch and proving proper methods of prevention, treatment and recovery. Thisagency is known for fostering innovative thinking and providing a vast array ofnovel scientific perspectives, especially in the field of clinical trials ofpsychiatric medication, neuroscience and genetics.
Statistical Data
Various different types of mental disorders are quite commonin the United States and in most cases it is associated with extreme disabilityinduced by serious mental illness. Serious mental illnesses are defined by theNational Survey on Drug Use and Health as mental, emotional or behavioral disorderwhich result in serious functional impairments and can be diagnosed currentlyor within the past year.
Research Priorities
National Institute of Mental Health has four main strategicobjectives which are clearly defined and identified. One of the four objectivesis to strengthen the public health impact of the research supported by theagency. It is also very important to develop new and improved interventionswhich are meant to incorporate various diverse needs and circumstances ofpeople who are affected by different sorts of mental illnesses. The NationalInstitute of Mental Health is also very keen on charting mental illnesstrajectories in order to determine how, where and when to intervene. The fourthstrategic objective of the National Institute of Mental Health is promotingdiscoveries in the brain and behavioral sciences in order to fuel furtherresearch on the causes of various different types of mental disorders.
History of National Institute of Mental Health
Before World War II, mental health has always been aresponsibility of the state, but the increased lobbying for a federal ornational initiative has changed things dramatically. The National Mental HealthAct was signed into law in the year of 1946 which further led to theestablishment of National Institute of Health and a National Advisory MentalHealth Council, which took place on April 14, in the year of 1949. Initially,the funding had a slow growth, but after only a couple of years it took asudden twist and started to grow dramatically. The National Institute of MentalHealth became a highly influential authority when it came to the legitimizationof the importance of various new advances in community based mental healthpolicies, psychological services, psychiatric services and biomedical science.In 1955 a report called Action for Mental Health was prepared upon request fromthe Mental Health Study Act. The whole new era when it comes to Federal supportfor mental health services began in the year of 1963 when the Congresssuccessfully passed the Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act andMental Retardation Facilities. The year of 1967 brought some more changes asthe National Institute of Mental health got separated from National Institutesof Health and received Bureau status. In the year of 1968 the agency becauseone of the components of the Health Services and Mental Health Administration. Duringthe first half of the seventies, the National Institute of Mental Health gotassociated with establishment of an important act: the Comprehensive AlcoholAbuse and Alcoholism Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Act. The eightiessaw the launch of the Epidemiologic Catchment Study which was an enormouseffort which included interviews with 20,000 Americans. The first analyses tookfive years to complete and they gave an immensely rich picture of rates ofvarious sorts of addictive and mental disorders among the citizens of theUnited States. The year of 1996 saw the initiation of systemic reviews ofservices research, clinical treatment, prevention research, epidemiology and servicesfor child and adolescent population and genetics of mental disorders and theestablishment of programmatic groups for each of the aforementioned areas. Thenineties also saw the capitalizations on various new technologies and differentapproaches to clinical and basic science. In recent years, the NationalInstitute of Mental Health has undergone certain organizational changes whichtook place mainly because of expanded and changed mental health research needs.
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