The Treatment Advocacy Center is the only national nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to promoting laws, policies and practices that aim to improve treatment access for people with severe mental illness, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. A key aspect of this work is ensuring our nation’s state and federal governments are operating and making decisions that have the potential to reduce suffering and improve lives of individuals living with these conditions.
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
The NIMH is the main federal government agency for research into mental illness. With a budget of almost $2 billion in 2020, the NIMH conducts research and funds outside investigators to better understand mental illness and develop new treatments to reduce the burden these disorders have on individuals.
Unfortunately, the NIMH has been ignoring those with the most severe mental illnesses. Only 10% of its schizophrenia research projects are likely to produce meaningful changes for people living with these conditions over the next 20 years. The federal organization has shifted the balance of its research portfolio away from clinical research to be heavily weighted towards basic science research, far from the 50-50 basic science-clinical research split that it once was. An analysis of its 2020–2024 strategic plan suggests that the NIMH will continue to fail individuals with severe mental illness and their families for the near future.
The Treatment Advocacy Center has released a new series of reports on the NIMH research portfolio:
- Using the NIH Research, Condition and Disease Categorization Database for research advocacy: Schizophrenia research at NIMH as an example
- NIMH clinical research on serious mental illness is deficient by both national and international standards
- The Continuing Decline of Clinical Research on Serious Mental Illnesses at NIMH
The Treatment Advocacy Center will not let the NIMH keep ignoring severe mental illness and will continue to urge the NIMH to re-align their psychiatric research priorities to better serve people living with these conditions. To get involved in this work, see our #Right2Research advocacy campaign below.
Other Publications About the NIMH
The NIMH is Failing Bipolar Disorder, October 12, 2021
Letter to NIMH National Advisory Mental Health Council members in advance of the February 2, 2021 council meeting, January 29, 2021
Personally Speaking: Time for a transparent look at psychiatric treatments, by Mary Rossell, January 14, 2021
Research Weekly: NIMH largely ignores public comments to 2020–2025 Strategic Plan, June 3, 2020
Public comment on the 2020 NIMH Strategic Plan for Research (NOT-MH-20-003), December 17, 2019 and call to action
Schizophrenia as a pseudogenetic disease: A call for more gene-environmental studies, Psychiatry Research, August 2019, and Research Weekly
NIMH drug trials for schizophrenia, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, January 15, 2019
Research Weekly: NIMH Alliance for Research Progress recap, October 24, 2018
Hocus Pocus: How the NIMH made 2 million people with schizophrenia disappear, Psychiatric Times, March 14, 2018
Research Weekly: A call for new priorities at the NIMH, June 28, 2016