Mental Health Focus on Campaign Trail Is a Major Step

Last night at a Town Hall in South Carolina, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush answered a question about drug use and abuse with a broader appeal. "We ought to have a focus on the brain," he said. "You think about the challenges that play out in our society, all of these things relate to the brain." Gov. Bush mentioned addiction, and Alzheimer's. I'd like to add mental health and learning disorders to that list. Just this past week the Duchess of Cambridge guest edited the Huffington Post UK with a focus on children's mental health, and First Lady Michelle Obama wrote that we must "change the conversation around mental health." With better awareness and education, Mrs. Obama wrote, "we can help the people we know get the help they need before it's too late." This explosion in public statements about mental health and the importance of studying and understanding brain-based illness is encouraging. And it needs to go further. All of the presidential candidates should be talking about how, with a commitment to understanding the brain, we can help so many people of any age struggling with emotional and behavioral disorders. At the Child Mind Institute, we believe that focusing on children and the developing brain is the surest way to increase the pace of discovery and transform lives. To that end, in 2015 the Child Mind Institute launched the Healthy Brain Network to pursue a bold goal: to seek out biological markers of mental health disorders in the developing brain....
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news