Raising Awareness and

Prevention of Mental
Illness

National Alliance on Mental Illness

Submitted to: United States Congress
Submitted from: Victoria Wait
November 12, 2015

Table of Contents
Abstract
.3
Introduction
...4
Plan of
Action
.5
Benefits
.6
Approach
..7
Evaluation
8
Qualifications
.9
Appendix
...10
Sources
...11
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Abstract
Approximately 80 million Americans experience
mental illness within a given year, with roughly
one quarter afflicted with a serious mental
illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar
disorder. Of those affected, nearly 70 percent
did not receive mental health services within
the past year. Mental illness costs America
hundreds of billions of dollars in lost earnings
per year, and is among the leading causes of
homelessness, incarcerations, hospitalizations,
and untimely deaths. This project aims to
increase the awareness and knowledge of
mental illness to allow successful prevention
and treatment.

Introduction
Currently in the United States, approximately
61.5 million adult Americans are battling some
form of mental illness; thats about one in four
adults, with one quarter of them suffering from
a severe mental illness. In addition, a startling
20 percent of youth between the ages of 13
and 18 are experiencing severe mental
disorders, with an estimate of 13 percent for
those under the age of 13. Some how our
country
has
increasingly
raised
the
stigmatization surrounding mental illness over
the decades, which causes sufferers to feel
intense shame and guilt. In fear of becoming
labeled, most people affected with mental
illness refuse to seek mental health services.
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Outside of this stigma, the low availability and

high cost of mental health services decreases
the possibility of those afflicted to obtain help.
Over the past fifty decades, the number of
mental health hospitals and facilities has
exponentially decreased. Without treatment,
most mental illness symptoms will worsen and
often times cause a secondary mental illness or
addiction to a substance. This begins the
cascading downfall that too often ends in
imprisonment, homelessness, or untimely
death. If one in four adults is afflicted with a
mental illness, that means that millions of
Americans suffer from watching a coworker,
friend, or family member spiral downward. This
is an epidemic that truly needs our immediate
attention.

Plan of Action
I would employ both immediate and long-term
plans for raising awareness and prevention of
mental illness. The immediate plan would
include increasing public awareness and
knowledge of the mental illness epidemic and
about mental illnesses themselves. The more
that we can increase the knowledge of these
diseases, the easier it will be to prevent and
appropriately handle them. An increase in the
availability of counselors within schools would
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be another action set in place right away. This

would allow a free and safe place for students
to seek information or therapeutic services for
any potential mental illness they may be
experiencing or dealing with the repercussions
of someone close to them being ill. The more
long-term plans would include increasing the
number of mental health facilities nationwide,
lowering the cost of mental health services,
and ultimately decreasing the stigma that
revolves around mental illness. These longterm plans would encourage more afflicted
individuals to openly seek mental health
services.

Benefits
The benefits to raising awareness and
prevention of mental illness will greatly surpass
any of the financial costs of implementing
these plans. Not only will the afflicted
individuals be receiving the services they need
to allow them to be an active member of
society, but their friends and family will now
have a lifted burden off of them as well,
whether that may be emotional, financial, or
physical. This improves the condition of
societys overall well-being. The benefits to the
nation will not stop there, but this plan would
also decrease the amount of hopitalizations
and incarcerations that cost a great deal of
money. It would also decrease the amount of
lost income earnings per year. As you can see,
the pros significantly outweigh any conceivable
cons that would be associated with this
proposal.

Approach
There are quite a few approaches that would
be taken to allow a spectrum of resources for
the awareness and prevention of mental
illness.
Prevention
programs
would
be
implemented in schools, and part-time
psychologists would be available to the
students on a consistent and regular basis.
Mental health facilities will be built in cities and
towns around the nation to offer services to
anyone that is in need. The majority of these
will be non-profit organizations. Educational
seminars will be made available to the
community quarterly and it would be arranged
to have a set mental illness awareness period
during which more emphasis on this topic will
be nationally advertised. In order to decrease
overall stigma of mental illnesses, historically
influential people or celebrities will be honored
for their gained success in lieu of their mental
illness. This will be in an effort to normalize
these types of diseases.

Evaluation
There will be numerous factors that will be able
to be monitored either directly or indirectly to
measure the success of the implementation of
our action plans. Directly we will be able to
monitor yearly mental health evaluations that
can be completed in schools in combination
with the students yearly physical. The usage
of the mental health clinics can be monitored,
and yearly statistics from NAMI will shed direct
light on the status of mental illness. Indirectly
we can loosely use the statistics on
homelessness, hospitalizations, incarcerations,
and suicide rates to determine how effective
the increased awareness and prevention of
mental illness has been.

Qualifications
Bachelors of Science in Psychology, with a
focus in addictions
Interned with the Mental Illness Association
for 2 years
A member of the Mental Health Association
of Central Carolinas
Support from the National Institute of
Mental Health
Support and collaboration with the National
Alliance of Mental Illness

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Appendix
In a survey completed on the campus of
the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte, comprising of 467 male and 531
female students, it was found that 81% of
college
students
felt
uncomfortable
answering questions about or discussing
mental illness, however, 48% of them
admitted to being afflicted by mental
illness in some capacity.
At the end of the survey, each participant
was asked about their level of receptivity
towards
increased
awareness
and
prevention of mental health and the
tabulated average was a 7.2 clearly
indicating that there would be a lot of
individuals interested in this plan.

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Sources
Mental Health By The Numbers.
https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/MentalHealth-By-the-Numbers
National Institute of Mental Health.
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml
Mental Health Association of Central
Carolinas.
http://www.mhacentralcarolinas.org/
Mental Illness Research Association.
http://www.miraresearch.org/

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