Political Influences on Primary Prevention

Two significant political trends have taken place over the last two decades with regard to mental health prevention programs: (1) greater awareness of prevention with improvement in access to services for those at high risk for mental health disorders and (2) a rising interest in mental health promotion, nationally and internationally.

Of major importance on the national scene is the expansion of the title and mandate for the Federal agency concerned with the health of the nation from Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP). Although the acronym has not as yet come into common usage, the change has given visibility to prevention, lifting it to a national priority.

Poverty has continued to be recognized as the greatest risk factor for mental disorder. Indeed, recent findings of the ACE study (a partnership between the CDCP and Kaiser-Permanente) (Anda et al., 2006) have documented that the pernicious effects of poverty are manifest not...