Finding a Public Health Vision to Combat the Opioid Epidemic

I am grateful to Behavioral Health News for focusing attention and showcasing efforts and innovation to tackle the opioid epidemic. In behavioral health, we talk a lot about addressing silos and integrating across providers, community members, and peers. Behavioral Health News is therefore an...

Organizational Needs-Based Toolkit for Peer Workforce Integration Introduced at NYC Peer Workforce Consortium

On Thursday, April 18th, the NYC Peer and Community Health Worker Workforce Consortium convened over sixty stakeholders at CUNY Graduate School for Public Health for an event to “kick off” its new toolkit. The toolkit offers guidance to provider organizations who are interested in advancing the...

Addressing the Opioid Crisis in New York City

Like communities and cities across the country, New York City (NYC) has experienced increasing deaths from overdoses due to opioids, which include both opioid analgesics (prescription painkillers) heroin. In NYC, opioid overdoses are the leading cause of deaths from accidental injuries and a...

Mental Health Integration in Pediatric Primary Care Practices in NYC

The primary goal of mental health integration in pediatrics is prevention and early intervention. Mental health integration in pediatric primary care is increasingly recognized as a key approach to support children’s healthy social and emotional development and intervene early to prevent more...

Integrating Physical and Behavioral Health Care Systems: Lessons Learned in New York City

In New York City, as elsewhere, people with mental illnesses have worse physical health outcomes, on average, than the rest of the population. An estimated 239,000 New Yorkers live with serious mental illnesses, or SMI (Community Mental Health Survey 2012). They are significantly more likely to...

Creating Culture Change: NYC Tackles Housing and Employment

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), together with community partners and providers, is working to increase access to employment and affordable housing for all people with mental illnesses. Local governments, including health departments, are ideally positioned to...

From Transition to Transformation

The New York State behavioral health system’s evolution toward greater care integration and accountability and a focus on recovery will include larger roles for managed care organizations in developing and managing systems of care, expanded care coordination and case management services, and new...

Early Childhood Social-Emotional Development: Building Healthy Foundations for A Lifetime of Success

A seminal publication in 2000 From Neurons to Neighborhoods, The Science of Early Childhood Development has established the importance of early childhood experiences on lifelong well-being (JP Shonkoff & DA Phillips, Eds., 2000). Ongoing research continues to demonstrate that the early years in...

Preventing Mental Illnesses and Substance Use Disorders

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has a unique mandate in our City to prevent illness and disability. How does this mandate translate to our work in behavioral health? This inaugural publication of Behavioral Health News, with its focus on the interconnectedness...

Making Recovery More Than Just a Word

Over the past 50 years, the mental health system in New York City has evolved from a system of dependent care to a more person-centered system. But there is still much work to be done. Employment rates for people living with mental illness are still abysmally low….unemployment for people with...