This book considers ways to resolve the imbalance between the demand and supply of mental health services. Treatment services in most countries reach only a minority of people identified as suffering from a mental disorder. Few countries can provide adequate health services for all the mentally ill, yet none has developed a rational system to decide who should be treated. The questions are clear. Could we develop a staged treatment process to reach all in need? If not, how do we decide who to treat? What should the criteria be for deployment of scarce treatment resources? How do we determine such criteria? What are the ethical implications of applying such criteria? In this pioneering work, an international team of eminent psychiatrists, epidemiologists, health administrators, economists and health planners examine these questions. The result will inform and encourage all concerned with the equitable provision of mental health care.

There have always been homeless people in the United States, but their plight has only recently stirred widespread public reaction and concern. Part of this new recognition stems from the problem's prevalence: the number of homeless individuals, while hard to pin down exactly, is rising. In light of this, Congress asked the Institute of Medicine to find out whether existing health care programs were ignoring the homeless or delivering care to them inefficiently. This book is the report prepared by a committee of experts who examined these problems through visits to city slums and impoverished rural areas, and through an analysis of papers written by leading scholars in the field.

Bringing together treatment and referral advice from existing guidelines, this text aims to improve access to services and recognition of common mental health disorders in adults and provide advice on the principles that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local care pathways.