We may never know the motivations behind the horrific acts in Tucson and whether they could have been prevented. Mental illness, however, has been tentatively identified as a “suspect” in the shootings.
If we are to learn anything from this tragedy, we must look at mental health as a public health issue and give it the attention and resources it deserves. Owing to historical patterns of discrimination against mental health and addiction-related services and the ‘rescue’ focused systems of care in the United States, we are missing important opportunities to better serve our public health needs.
It is first important to note that persons with mental illnesses are no more likely to be violent than the general population. However, there are specific mental health symptom clusters that occur in a very small proportion of the population that, if untreated, increase the risk for violence. Our goal should be to reduce the overall prevalence of mental disorders and to do whatever we can to identify individuals early in their course of illness and intervene effectively with them.
Read more from the Health Affairs blog here.
