The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #40033

Jeffrey Draine, PhD and Mark S. Salzer, PhD. Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Social problems among persons with mental illness receive heightened attention in the media and research literature. These problems include increased involvement in the criminal justice system and unemployment. Services research on these social problems have generally focused on person-level attributions associated with mental illness. Evidence for these assumptions are generated by analysis of data derived from clinical and service samples. This paper reviews research concerning criminal involvement and unemployment among persons with mental illness. The impact of mental illness on criminal involvement and unemployment appears much smaller than that implied by much of the psychiatric services research literature when a more complex social policy perspective is considered. Poverty related factors moderate the relationship between mental illness and social problems. This relationship is often complicated, and not given to simple explanations. However, because the interventions are often focused on the disease as the primary cause, then the effectiveness of the interventions is theoretically limited to the extent to which the disease impacts the problem. This may explain the disappointing record of intervention research in these areas. Services addressing social problems among those with mental illness will be more effective if they are focused in the areas where the problems lie. One way is to accomplish this is to propose effectiveness research designs that focuses on contextualized comparisons. Validity for effectiveness would be supported by comparison to benchmarks established by the general research in criminal involvement and unemployment. Comparison groups could include both ill and non-ill individuals.

Learning Objectives:

• Learner will contexualize the role of mental illness in social problems in a broader framework that includes social and economic factors
• Learner will consider the role of multi-level interventions to include community level as well as individual level interventions to reduce criminal involvement and increase employment among persons with mental illness

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.