News and Commentary from the

Treatment Advocacy Center

May 2022

Below is a summary of recent developments and compelling news stories from across the country highlighting America's broken mental health treatment system and how to fix it.

Treatment Advocacy Center in the News

Executive Director Lisa Dailey was quoted in Phoenix Magazine explaining the importance of an integrated system of care for unhoused people with SMI, in an article about the prevalence of unhoused populations in Arizona. Read more here.

Treatment Advocacy Center's research on the decline of available state psychiatric beds was cited by NYC Councilman Erik Bottcher in his New York Daily News opinion piece arguing for the repeal of the IMD exclusion. Treatment Advocacy Center's support for the Michelle Alyssa Go Act to repeal the IMD exclusion was also mentioned. Read more here.

Treatment Advocacy Center’s research on fatal law enforcement encounters with people with SMI was cited in a Newsweek article about alternatives to police response for mental health crises. Read more here.

AOT and the Minority Experience: Facing Our Blind Spots

DJ Jaffe Advocate Sabah Muhammad spoke at “AOT and the Minority Experience: Facing Our Blind Spots,” a webinar hosted by the AOT Learning Network.

In her role as Treatment Advocacy Center’s inaugural DJ Jaffe Advocate, Sabah focuses on families of color affected by severe mental illness. Her goal is to reach underserved communities and give BIPOC families a platform to share their unique experiences and struggles.

Sabah shared her experiences as a minority advocating on behalf of a sibling with severe mental illness caught in the revolving door of incarceration and hospitalization. Harnessing what she has learned from her own family’s experience and that of other BIPOC families, Sabah offered advice and practical suggestions on the steps that assisted outpatient treatment champions, implementers and practitioners can take to help eliminate racial and cultural barriers to treatment within our AOT programs.

Visit our YouTube channel to see this and other recordings from Treatment Advocacy Center webinars, as they are added.

RESEARCH WEEKLY: May 2022 Recap

2.8 million adults with schizophrenia in the United States

There were approximately 2.8 million adults with schizophrenia living in the United States in 2020 and about 40% of these individuals, or 1.1 million adults, are untreated at any given time. For more data on severe mental illness, including updated prevalence numbers based on the 2020 US Census, see our By the Numbers page.

Find all of this month's research highlights here.

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