The past half-century has been marked by major changes in the treatment of mental illness: important advances in understanding mental illnesses, increases in spending on mental health care and support of people with mental illnesses, and the availability of new medications that are easier for the patient to tolerate. Although these changes have made things better for those who have mental illness, they are not quite enough. In Better But Not Well, Richard G. Frank and Sherry A. Glied examine the well-being of people with mental illness in the United States over the past fifty years, addressing issues such as economics, treatment, standards of living, rights, and stigma. Marshaling a range of new empirical evidence, they first argue that people with mental illness-severe and persistent disorders as well as less serious mental health conditions-are faring better today than in the past. Improvements have come about for unheralded and unexpected reasons. Rather than being a result of more effective mental health treatments, progress has come from the growth of private health insurance and of mainstream social programs-such as Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, housing vouchers, and food stamps-and the development of new treatments that are easier for patients to tolerate and for physicians to manage. The authors remind us that, despite the progress that has been made, this disadvantaged group remains worse off than most others in society. The "mainstreaming" of persons with mental illness has left a policy void, where governmental institutions responsible for meeting the needs of mental health patients lack resources and programmatic authority. To fill this void, Frank and Glied suggest that institutional resources be applied systematically and routinely to examine and address how federal and state programs affect the well-being of people with mental illness.

By pulling information from a wide variety of sources, these authors provide a fresh and optimistic look on improvements in the well-being of people with mental illness. A major contribution to the field. -- Steven Sharfstein, President and CEO of the Sheppard Pratt Health System An important and provocative addition to the literature dealing with health policy. -- Gerald N. Grob, Ph.D., Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers University, author of The Deadly Truth Professors Frank and Glied offer a broad-based and candid assessment of the evolution of mental health care in the United States and of how the well-being of people touched by mental health problems changed during the last half of the twentieth century. -- Rosalynn Carter, from the Foreword

About the Author
Richard G. Frank is the Morris Professor of Health Economics at Harvard University Medical School and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Sherry A. Glied is a professor in and chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.

Reviews
Offers many insights beneficial to the informed reader. -- David Mechanic New England Journal of Medicine 2006 The authors are true to their word in providing an excellent overview of changes in the last 50 years. They provide compelling evidence that the condition of many, if not most, persons with mental illness has improved during that period. JAMA 2007 Will be of greatest interest to students of mental health economics, services, and policy, but clinicians interested in the relationship between health policy and everyday practice will also find it useful. -- Burton V. Reifler International Psychogeriatrics 2007 Provides a necessary counterpart to much overenthusiastic optimism surrounding recent development in psychopharmacology and the neurosciences. -- Bonnie Evans Journal of Mental Health 2008 Offers a fascinating... historical analysis of mental health policy. -- Ellen Dwyer History of Psychiatry 2008 Should be assigned to every practitioner, mental health clinician, administrator, and advocate - as well as every legislator and policy maker - concerned with the status of Americans with serious mental illness. -- William Fisher Psychiatric Services 2007 If one... has time to read one book on mental health policy this year, this should be the one. -- Roger Meyer Health Affairs 2007 A comprehensive assessment of changes in the life conditions and well-being of persons with serious mental illnesses over the past five decades. -- Janet R. Nelson Clergy Journal 2008 A well-written and important work that provides a definitive look at the past and a glimpse into the future of mental health policy in America. -- Kathleen Brown RN, MSN, PhD Nursing History Review 2009



Book Information
ISBN 9780801884436
Author Richard G. Frank
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 272g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 14mm