Health and Wellness in People Living With Serious Mental Illness

People with serious mental illness get sick and die 10–20 years earlier than their same age cohort. The social determinants are many: stigma associated with mental illness, poverty, ethnicity-based discrimination, higher rates of smoking and alcohol and drug use, and poor diet and exercise patterns, to name a few. Although multiple interventions have emerged as ways to combat these health challenges, additional research is necessary for the continued development and evaluation of strategies. This context serves as the springboard for Health and Wellness in People Living With Serious Mental Illness.

Through multiple case vignettes, the book delves into the challenges of health and wellness for people with mental illness—including those listed above—summarizing the research on mortality and morbidity in this group as well as information about the status quo on wellness.

It also provides a thorough description of community-based participatory research (CBPR), an approach that includes people in a community as partners in all facets of research, rather than just the subjects of that research.

CBPR acts as the lens through which this guide considers solutions to these health problems, including integrated services and patient-centered medical homes; medical practices that diminish the iatrogenic effects of psychiatry; psychoeducation; interpersonal supports; and shared decision-making.

Co-edited by Patrick Corrigan, with a 30-year history in services research, and Sonya Ballentine, a community-based member of a CBPR team, this volume offers a grounded, real-world illustration of CBPR in practice.

Students of psychiatry, practicing clinicians, primary care providers, allied health professionals, policy makers—all will find, in the pages of this book, a nuanced portrait of the health challenges patients with mental illness face, possible treatment options, and future directions for the field.