Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Mental Health Proceedings of a Workshop (2020) / Chapter Skim
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5 Turning Experience into Policy
5 Turning Experience into Policy
Pages 47-56
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From page 47... ...
• In the end, legislation and public policy may help the most -- even more than the delivery of quality health care -- in reducing inequi ties that drive mental health outcomes. (Benedek)
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From page 48... ...
It was also stated that, in the end, legislation and public policy may help the most -- even more than the delivery of quality health care -- in reducing these inequities. With those few comments, Benedek welcomed Representative Moulton to the stage, asking him to help the forum members and guests better understand how, as educators, "we can teach not only ourselves but our students about our role in trying to work on the legislative process." He encouraged the congressman to share his story and to perhaps remind the audience how, over the course of a lifetime, those drivers of mental health outcomes can change for people, such as how life decisions and circumstances can alter the trajectory of one's mental and physical health outcomes.
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From page 49... ...
The third point of Moulton's plan is to extend the annual mental health screenings to every high school student in America. The two main goals of this plan, Moulton said, are to improve access to mental health care and to destigmatize the idea of getting regular mental health exams and seeking additional help when needed.
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From page 50... ...
Implementing some of these proposals, Moulton said, will involve a significant amount of money and require recruiting and training more mental health professionals. While this is a tall challenge, Moulton said, he has learned that "it's better to set the goal and say this is something we want to achieve, and then we'll figure out how to get the people to fill the spots." Pamela Jeffries, professor of nursing and dean of The George Washington University School of Nursing, suggested that school nurses would be excellent partners in the effort to screen high school students.
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From page 51... ...
Other members of Congress heard about the video -- and the issue -- from their constituents and reached out to support the bill. Moulton said that members of Congress have a lot of ideas and proposals but that people at the grassroots level, including students, can really influence what gets prioritized (see Box 5-1 for an example of policy priorities impacting mental health)
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From page 52... ...
The case histories (see Appendix E) involved patients who presented for care with seemingly straightforward medical issues, but through a gradual unveiling of information it became apparent that each case was affected in some way by the SDH that affected the person's mental health and well-being.
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From page 53... ...
Policy and Advocacy Training Julian Fisher, research associate at the Peter L Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics at the Hannover Medical School in Germany, said that everyone needs a skill set in policy and advocacy training regardless of his or her eventual career path, and that this skill set is "very weak and underdeveloped within the health and social workforce." Fisher said that while there is some attention paid to social determinants on the individual or community levels, there is far less attention paid to the ways in which policy affects structural determinants.
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From page 54... ...
This led to a third participant commenting that students also need to have conversations about culture, class, race, and ethnicity and about how these intersect and can affect a person's self-care and self-advocacy as well as their care and advocacy for others. Integrating Social Care In September 2019 the National Academies released a consensus study report titled Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation's Health.
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From page 55... ...
In this way, she said, different health professions can learn from each other and can leverage different professions' expertise in offering advocacy training across curricula. Frost underscored the power of interprofessional advocacy as she described her recent experience briefing lawmakers on Capitol Hill who were captivated by NAP's interprofessional approach to addressing challenges in health care.
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From page 56... ...
2019. Four years in the making, mental health center opens in south San Antonio school district.
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