Report questions federal mental health funding priorities

But others say the National Institute of Mental Health rightly finances research on a broad range of mental illnesses.

By Joel B. Finkelstein, AMNews staff. Dec. 15, 2003.

Washington -- The National Institute of Mental Health doesn't support as many studies on serious mental illness as it should or could, according to a recent report by the Treatment Advocacy Center and Public Citizen.

Using the NIMH's definition of serious mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe forms of depression, panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, the groups concluded that the institute spent less than a third of its budget on studies of serious mental conditions. The rest went to fund social science research, research proposals of questionable value and studies that should have been funded by another institute or organization, the report stated.

"The bottom line is ... that they're not particularly interested in severe mental illnesses," said E. Fuller Torrey, MD, the lead author of the report and president of the Treatment Advocacy Center. "That was true when I was there in the early '70s, and it's true today."

Research on schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression and other serious mental illness has fallen behind other areas of medicine, Dr. Torrey said. "NIMH has not allocated the funds to push the research area ahead, and there's practical implications for that, practical implications for people who are severely mentally ill and for whom the treatments are marginally effective or not effective at all."

The report is not meant to be the last word on which studies are worthy of funding, but it illustrates how NIMH's priorities are out of sync with public needs, Dr. Torrey added. An estimated 11.6 million adults in the United States have serious mental illnesses, according to the report.