Youth violence and gang involvement account for one of the most pressing public health and safety issues facing our country, and unless intervention efforts are redirected to include preventive rather than punitive strategies, the danger is not likely to diminish, Harvard Law School professor Charles J. Ogletree told a House of Representatives panel.

In a... »

Faith not only feeds the soul, it also might heal the mind. Data amassed over the past three decades on religion, spirituality, and health suggest that faith practices can be powerful mental health elixirs.

Multiple cross-sectional, epidemiological, and randomized clinical trials examining the impact that religious or spiritual involvement has on measures... »

The irrationality of the age-old, artificial dichotomy between physical and mental health is painfully obvious in the longstanding failure to address the association between diabetes and major depression.

“We have known for years that these conditions overlap, yet their combination continues to lead to worse physical and psychiatric outcomes,” according... »

Creative engagement is to the aging brain as physical activity is to the aging body. Just as studies have shown older adults who maintain higher levels of muscle strength, flexibility, and aerobic capacity are healthier and better able to preserve their independent function longer than their more sedentary peers, an emerging body of literature suggests... »

Mental illness and gainful employment should not be mutually exclusive. In fact, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 demands that they not be.

The legislation and its subsequent amendments sought to eliminate unfair treatment of and discrimination against qualified workers with disabilities, improve their access to mainstream resources, and require... »

Psychosocial and psychiatric issues are prevalent among people with advanced life-threatening illnesses. Yet, mental illness too often is unacknowledged, unassessed, underdiagnosed, and undertreated in hospice settings, according to Dr. Scott Irwin, director of the Palliative Care Psychiatry Program at the Institute for Palliative Medicine at San Diego... »

As the war over health care reform rages on in Congress, more desperate battles are being fought daily by uninsured Americans with mental illness or addiction disorders.

Almost 50% of the people who received their most recent substance abuse treatment at a specialty facility in the past year reported using their “own savings or earnings” to pay their most... »