New Study Shows Mental Health Services Should Be Included In Disaster Response

Circle Connections: Policy & Regulatory Updates A new university study asserts that emergency planning and disaster response should include consideration for mental health services. The paper from psychiatrists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, published in the August 7 Journal of the American Medical Association, provides a framework for disaster mental health response that can be used to guide overall response. The authors reviewed over 1,000 articles pertaining to the after-effects of disasters on mental health, more than 200 of which showed disasters can exacerbate existing mental health problems . . .