Presidential agendas Walden university

Presidential agendas Walden University

Presidential Agendas: Mental Health

Consider a topic (mental health) that rises to the presidential level.

Mental health is a population health topic that rises to the presidential level. It is a public health concern that affects the ability of individuals to live a fulfilling life that includes the ability to undertake professional and social responsibilities, such as work, family, and school tasks. A poor mental health outcome is associated with physical and social problems. The issue rises to the presidential level because it is a population health concern requiring government intervention at the federal and state levels to ensure that population health needs are met and a healthy lifestyle is promoted while detecting, preventing, and responding to mental health issues (Singh et al., 2022).

How did the current and previous presidents handle the problem?

President Donald Trump handled the mental health issue in 2020 by signing Executive Order 13954, dubbed “Saving Lives through Increased Support for Mental- and Behavioral-Health Needs”. This executive order sought to address mental health issues at the federal by allocating resources to minimize suicide ideation and drug-related deaths following the Covid-19 pandemic. It established a working group tasked with improving the coordination of mental health services between stakeholders while funding state agencies and organizations to support mental health treatment efforts (Government Information, 2020) Presidential agendas Walden University.

President Joe Biden handled the mental health issue through the Unity Agenda, a national mental health strategy implemented at the federal level to strengthen system capacity while linking more people to care and creating a continuum of support. The president’s focus was on transforming health and social services and infrastructure to equitably and holistically address mental health issues by strengthening capacity through greater investment, research, certification, and training. In addition, the Unity Agenda focused on connecting Americans to mental healthcare services by increasing resources, support for public health institutions, improving care access, expanding and strengthening parity, integrating mental healthcare into primary care, and embedding mental healthcare into community-based settings. Besides that, the Unity Agenda creates a healthy environment by banning activities that may impact mental health outcomes, such as targeted advertisement, strengthened privacy, halted discriminatory decision-making algorithms that limit opportunities, improved online protection, expanded intervention and support services, trained mental health professionals, and invested in research (The White House, 2022).

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What would you do differently?

While the two presidents made significant efforts in addressing mental health concerns, there is a notable focus on tertiary prevention and intervention efforts that involve interventions for persons with established mental health issues to prevent relapse and associated outcomes, such as premature mortality, physical illness, and health risk behavior. There is a need to invest government resources towards primary promotion efforts that involve promoting protective factors for mental well-being across the population, including meaningful activity, employment, education, adequate housing, and physical activity. Additionally, more resources should be invested in secondary promotion activities that involve early prevention to promote protective factors for mental well-being (Moller et al., 2020).

Furthermore, there is a need to recognize that some population groups are at higher risk of mental health issues and poor well-being, thereby creating a need to invest proportional more government resources in the primary, secondary and tertiary promotion activities targeting them. For instance, adult high risk groups may include minority ethnic groups, persons with learning disabilities, prisoners, and homeless persons. This would help to prevent the widening inequalities between populations. Even as the high risk groups benefit from the prevention strategies, the low risk groups would also benefit (Moller et al., 2020) Presidential agendas Walden university.

References

Singh, V., Kumar, A., & Gupta, S. (2022). Mental Health Prevention and Promotion-A Narrative Review.
Frontiers in psychiatry, 13
, 898009.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.898009

Moller, N., Vossler, A., Jones, D., & Kaposi, D. (Eds.) (2020).
Understanding Mental Health and Counselling
. SAGE Publications.

Government Information (2020, October 3).
Executive Order 13954—Saving Lives Through Increased Support for Mental- and Behavioral-Health Needs
.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202000758/pdf/DCPD-202000758.pdf

The White House (2022, March 1).
FACT SHEET: President Biden to Announce Strategy to Address Our National Mental Health Crisis, As Part of Unity Agenda in his First State of the Union
.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/01/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-announce-strategy-to-address-our-national-mental-health-crisis-as-part-of-unity-agenda-in-his-first-state-of-the-union/

Rather than focus on the treatment of chronic disease, policies that influence population health tend to emphasize prevention and wellness; the reduction or elimination of waste and the eradication of health disparities based on race, ethnicity, language, income, gender, sexual orientation, disability and other factors. The reasoning is that good health belongs to the whole, not just an individual. (New York State Dept. of Health, n.d.)

Regardless of political affiliation, every citizen has a stake in healthcare policy decisions. Hence, it is little wonder why healthcare items become such
high-profile components of presidential agendas
. It is also little wonder why they become such hotly debated agenda items. Presidential agendas Walden university

Consider a topic (mental health, HIV, opioid epidemic, pandemics, obesity, prescription drug prices, or many others) that rises to the presidential level. How did the current and previous presidents handle the problem? What would you do differently?

Reference:

New York State Department of Health. (n.d.). Making New York the healthiest state: Achieving the triple aim. Retrieved June 21, 2021 from https://www.health.ny.gov/events/population_health_summit/docs/what_is_population_health.pdf Presidential agendas Walden university