ABSTRACT
Public policy for the support of psychiatric research takes its primary justification from evidence that the results of research improve the health of the population. Moreover, politicians operate within a time frame set by the next election; yet the impact of policy changes should be assessed over much longer periods. An impediment of a different kind arises when research yields strong, replicated, and important findings but the policy measures to change current practices are not readily implemented. Public policy is beginning to move toward recognition of responsibility for chronic mental patients. The goal of interdisciplinary research in the health sciences must become a more complete understanding of the interactions between human populations and their salient physical, biological, and social environments. The Board on Mental Health and Behavioral Medicine of the Institute of Medicine has argued that psychiatric research is grossly underfunded in relation both to progress in neuroscience and to the health burden produced by mental disorders.
