Category Access to Treatment

As Extreme Weather Events Increase, So Do Mental Health Needs. How Is the Federal Government Dealing with It?

Susan Weinstein, Families for Depression Awareness

Hurricane. Flood. Drought. Tornado.

Search for any of these weather conditions on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) website and you’ll see that these natural disasters have mental health ramifications.

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AFSP’s Suicide Prevention Policy Priorities: Our Agenda for Progress

John Madigan

John Madigan, Vice President of Public Policy
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

Reducing the incidence of suicide requires a multi-pronged approach, including scientific research, educating the public, supporting suicide loss and attempt survivors, and advocating for public policies. That’s the premise for our work at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

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How the Action Alliance Is Advancing the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention

National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention with Families for Depression Awareness

It’s Suicide Prevention Month. What is happening with national suicide prevention efforts?

The steady increase in suicide rates in the U.S. since 1999 underscores the need for coordinated and comprehensive prevention efforts involving government agencies, communities, organizations, families, and individuals.

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Everyone Has a Role in September and All Year Round

NAASP logo

Kimberly Torguson, Associate Director of Communications

September kicks off national suicide prevention month! This month serves to share helpful suicide prevention resources, highlight prevention successes, promote hope, and encourage help-seeking behaviors. This month, Families for Depression Awareness (FFDA), and the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) in collaboration with the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention (and many other national organization’s) are encouraging everybody’s involvement to help elevate the important role we all have in preventing this preventable public health issue.

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Detecting Bipolar Episodes … with Your Phone

Alex Leow, MD, PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago Colleges of Medicine and Engineering

Imagine that your smartphone could alert you to signs of a manic or depressive episode. Soon, it may do just that.

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Technology and Mental Health: Opening Research Possibilities

Roberta E. Tovey

Roberta E. Tovey, Director of Communications, MoodNetwork

Technology is so integrated into our lives today that it’s practically impossible to imagine existence without our cellphones, laptops, search engines, and Internet connections. We shop for appliances and clothing online; we talk on our cell phones while we are out running in the morning and while we drive home from work at night; we receive and send dozens or hundreds of emails every day; we do our research with Google; we read our books on Kindles and our newspapers on tablets; our kids do their homework on laptops and text their friends instead of talking to them. Whether or not this is an improvement over the past is irrelevant: we are here and there’s no going back.

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The Ethics of Digital Mental Health

Craig M. Klugman, Ph.D.
Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Department of Health Sciences, DePaul University

While the Internet age has been in full force for nearly 30 years, it is only in the recent decade that computer technology has made its way into patients’ hands.

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The Smartphone: A Thermometer for Mental Health?

Ardesheer Talati

Ardesheer Talati, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurobiology in Psychiatry at Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute

For all the high-tech medical gadgetry, the thermometer remains among the most remarkable medical devices: safe, easy to use, reliable. Pop it in, and out comes a number (body temperature) that can be used to make a number of important decisions related to our physical health.

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