Mental Health Stigma and Communication and Their Intersections with Education. Wicked Problems Forum: Mental Health Stigma

• Published in: Communication education Vol. 67; no. 3; pp. 382 - 393
• Main Authors: Smith, Rachel A, Applegate, Amanda
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2018
• Subjects: Access to Health Care; Barriers; Brain; Cognitive Style; Communication Research; Definitions; Education; Higher Education; Inclusion; Individual Differences; Intervention; Labeling (of Persons); Mental Disorders; Mental Health; Mental Health Programs; Negative Attitudes; Parent Attitudes; Social Bias; Social Discrimination; Stereotypes
• ISSN: 0363-4523
• DOI: 10.1080/03634523.2018.1465988

Roughly one in four Americans will experience a mental health issue during his or her lifetime (National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). The consequences of mental disorders can be profound: people with mental disorders experience higher rates of disability and mortality. People with depression and schizophrenia have a 40-60% greater chance of dying prematurely than the general population (WHO, 2017). One reason is that some physical problems are left unattended (e.g., cardiovascular disease; WHO, 2017), suggesting that people with mental disorders pull away from care. On the other hand, it could be that more people need treatment for mental health symptoms than health systems around the world are ready to provide (WHO, 2017): 35-50% of people in high-income countries who need treatment never receive it. A different possibility is that stigma and discrimination create barriers for people with mental disorders to access to treatment, jobs, housing, and relationships; this lack of access compromises their ability to attend to their physical health (Corrigan & Fong, 2014; WHO, 2017). Being stigmatized, by itself, depletes instrumental, social, and economic resources, resulting in many negative outcomes, including disparities in the quality and quantity of education (Hatzenbuehler, Phelan, & Link, 2013). The purpose of this essay is to spark a discussion about the intersections of communication, stigma, mental health, and education.