Previously on Scope, we discussed a Health Policy Forum on mental illness. As Stanford addiction expert Keith Humphreys, PhD, explained in his post, the goal of the forum - entitled "Serious Mental Illness: How can we balance public health and public safety?" - was to explore issues related to health policies for the mentally ill in a transparent and productive way.
Paul Costello, chief communications officer for the School of Medicine, led the forum's diverse panel of experts which included:
- Lee Baca, L.A. County Sheriff, head of the L.A. county jail system - the "nation's largest mental institution"
- Harold Pollack, PhD, Helen Ross Professor at the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration and co-director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab
- Laura Roberts, MD, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and chief of the psychiatry service for Stanford's Hospital and Clinics
The forum addressed several issues related to serious mental illness including violence, life as a mentally ill patient in prison, the stigma of mental illness, and cluster suicides. Costello and the panel bring fresh insights to a topic of longstanding debate; the video is worth a watch.
Holly MacCormick is a writing intern in the medical school’s Office of Communication & Public Affairs. She is a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology at University of California-Santa Cruz.
Previously: “Brains are unmentionable:” A father reflects on reactions to daughter’s mental illness, Upcoming Stanford Health Policy Forum to focus on mental illness, Examining mental health policies in the wake of school shooting tragedy and Probing the underlying physiological causes of mental illness
