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The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) which focuses on clinical research associated with mental illness and behavioral disorders through biological and behavioral perspectives. It focuses on the prevention, recovery, and cures of mental illness and is the nation’s scientific leader in this area.
NIMH was conceived on July 3, 1946 when President Truman signed the National Mental Health Act. This act acknowledged the plight of World War II soldiers coming back from war with mental illnesses caused or exacerbated by the environmental stress of war. It also recognized that the incidence rate of mental illness in the general population was higher than originally thought. To address this need for psychiatric care, the National Institute of Mental Health was formally established on April 15, 1949.
Since the beginning, NIMH has been at the forefront of mental health research focusing especially on assessing...
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References and Readings
National Institute of Mental Health. A participant’s guide to mental health clinical research. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
National Institutes of Health. (1999, September). National Institute of Mental Health: Important events in NIMH history. Retrieved February 16, 2011, from NIH 1999 Almanac http://www.nih.gov/about/almanac/archive/1999/organization/nimh/history.html
National Institutes of Health. (2011, February 11). About NIMH. Retrieved February 16, 2011, from National Institute of Mental Health http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/index.shtml
Walls, T. (2008, July 31). The National Mental Health Act of 1946 and the establishment of NIMH: Ongoing challenges. Retrieved February 16, 2011, from Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health http://www.scattergoodethics.org/?q=node/1146
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Pellowski, J. (2013). National Institute of Mental Health. In: Gellman, M.D., Turner, J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_661
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_661
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
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