Mental Health Compendium

Development of the Compendium

To understand the scope of mental health services provided by local health departments (LHDs) and to identify existing collaborations between mental health and public health entities, NACCHO conducted a brief online survey of its chronic disease and primary care e-mail distribution list members in December 2006. From the nearly 200 responses, NACCHO selected nine representing diverse programs and geographic profiles (region of the country, size of population served, rural or urban jurisdiction status, and ethnic composition of population served). One case study was subsequently canceled due to staff changes within the LHD.

NACCHO conducted in-depth telephone interviews between January and March 2007. Areas investigated included steps taken within the community to integrate mental health and public health programming; mental health programs within the LHD; the LHD’s role in community mental health service provision; strategic planning; partnership development; and workforce training.

The eight case studies presented here are examples of LHDs that are taking a public health approach to addressing the mental health needs of their communities. Each case study includes descriptions of the jurisdiction and population served, mental-heath-related programs, collaborations, unique components of the programs, barriers and challenges encountered, successes experienced, and future plans. Mental health initiatives featured address a great range of key and cutting-edge mental health issues and populations, including children and youth; geriatric mental health; behavioral health; suicide; depression; stigma; co-occurrence with substance abuse; provider networks; service integration; epidemiology; evaluation; emergency preparedness; rural health; a regional approach; workforce development; and jail diversion.

Contact information for each LHD, and in some cases for key partners, is included to encourage exchange of information with other LHDs and community-based organizations around this topic. The compendium seeks to share possible approaches to service integration and to generate new ideas. NACCHO welcomes submissions from other LHDs that have implemented similar initiatives.

The compendium will be made available on this site immediately after being published.