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Social Determinants and Adolescents’ Mental Health: First, Focus on Education and Graduation
Over recent decades, late adolescence and young adulthood, generally the years 16 or 18 through 25, have emerged as a distinct developmental period in the human life span. In the mental health field, the term Transition Age Youth and Young Adults – TAYYA – has come to describe young people of...
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The East New York Health Hub: A Model for Addressing Social Determinants of Health
By definition and mission, non-profit human services organizations have been addressing the social determinants of health for over a century1 and have long understood the impact these factors have on health (mental and physical). Until about a decade ago, however, these same providers were not a...
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A Network Approach for Social Determinants of Health
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describes Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) as “conditions in the places where people live, learn, work, and play that affect a wide range of health and quality-of life-risks and outcomes.”1 The impacts of these social determinants of health are well...
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The Great Accelerant: COVID-19 and the Social Determinants of Behavioral Health
The effects from the COVID-19 pandemic are intensifying the wave of transition sweeping across health and behavioral health care. In the pandemic’s wake is accentuating our social inequalities and health disparities, from race and social justice, workforce inequality, to the influence of social...
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Social Determinants of Health and COVID-19: A Peer Perspective
As a peer professional and advocate who helps people recognize their inherent strengths and works to facilitate recovery, it is so very disappointing to consider that after the huge volume of research that has been conducted, and the enormous number of scholarly articles which have been written,...
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Social Determinants of Behavioral Health: Time to Augment Advocacy Strategy?
The hope implicit in the concept of social determinants is that broad changes in the social, economic, and political structures of our communities, nations, and world can result in improved behavioral health of large populations, such as regions, age-groups, social classes, genders, disabilities,...
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Stable Housing: A Determinant of Our Behavioral Health
This article is part of a quarterly series giving voice to the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences as they share their opinions on a particular topic. The author is served by Services for the UnderServed (S:US), a New York City-based nonprofit that is committed to giving every New...
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Behavioral Health During and After the Pandemic
The response of the behavioral health system to the COVID pandemic has been rapid and remarkable. But it is, of course, imperfect and incomplete. What are the challenges still to be met? And what will happen after the pandemic, hopefully, ends and we move on to a new normal? What Has Been Done...
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Taking a Holistic Approach to Treating Opioid Addiction
Opioid overdoses led to more than 33,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2015—an average of 91 per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That national death toll is the “equivalent to America enduring another 9/11 attack every two-and-a-half weeks,” says New Jersey governor Chris...
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The Epidemic of Opiate Abuse: Its Causes and (Potential) Solutions
The use of mind and mood altering substances is certainly not unique to our modern post-industrialized society. Epidemics of substance use and addiction have ravaged communities for hundreds of years. Homo Sapiens and their ancestors have sought relief from suffering for as long as suffering has...
