ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, health care policymakers and clinicians have been contending with the impact of neuropsychiatric disorders on the morbidity, mortality, and quality of life of patients and their families. In addition to ever-increasing data about the costs of neuropsychiatric disorders, newer data about the profound disablement incurred by these disorders have resulted in increased national and international attention. In the United States, mental disorders collectively account for more than 15% of the overall burden of disease from all causes and slightly more than the burden associated with all forms of cancer (Lopez et al. 1998).
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Several exciting national directives and projects emerged from the highest levels of U.S. health care policy: a 1999 White House Conference on Mental Health, the 1999 Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent Suicide, the first ever Surgeon General’s 1999 Report on Mental Health, and a 2000 Surgeon General’s Conference on Children’s Mental Health.
