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By Elizabeth Millard
As part of the government's Bright Futures for Women's Health and
Wellness initiative, several psychologists have been invited to
provide expertise on mental health and develop evidence-based resources
to foster mental wellness in adolescent girls and women. The initiative
is part of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)
at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The larger goal of the Bright Futures effort is to provide education
for girls and women on topics that range from nutrition to stress
relief. The HRSA brought together an eight-member team, including
five psychologists, to develop materials focusing on mental health
issues.
"The mental health and wellness domain is focused on a holistic
approach that includes psychological, emotional and spiritual concepts,"
says Peter C. van Dyck, M.D., M.P.H., HRSA's associate administrator
for maternal and child health. "The focus on mental wellness, as
opposed to mental illness, has not been addressed from an evidence-based
perspective in the past."
The group first met by conference call in January, and has been
frequently in communication ever since. According to panel member
Pamela Mulder, Ph.D., who studies women's behavioral health and
rural health at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va., the first
item on the agenda is recruiting more members who have expertise
in a variety of areas.
She notes, "We want to be sure that we have input about a broad
array of cultural and socio-economic perspectives." These issues
include rural and urban perspectives and different fields of mental
health, she says. The group is also working on defining certain
terms like "spirituality" and "connectedness," as well as reviewing
literature related to areas including neurophysiology, positive
psychology and self-efficacy.
Mulder says, "If I were to sum up the committee's purpose it would
have to be an overarching and ambitious platitude, along the lines
of: 'creating a nation of physically and mentally healthy citizens,
so that we would be able to turn our attention to the world.'"
She admits that this is a lofty goal, and even rather grandiose,
but an accurate one. "The grandiosity does not change the reality
that this is what is needed, in the final analysis: a healthy populace,"
she says. "We are just trying to do our part to meet that bigger
goal."
One of the challenges that looms ahead for the Bright Futures panel
is creating mental health tools that can be used by a wide range
of girls and women as well as by communities and other mental health
practitioners. The HRSA doesn't have a date set for the first wave
of materials that will come as a result of the panel, but van Dyck
is confident that tools will be developed soon that are both useful
and user friendly.
Later this year, the HRSA will be distributing its first set of
materials on healthy eating and physical activity. The mental wellness
materials will most likely be similar to this initial set of resources
that includes self-assessment guides for girls and women and advice
for doctors. One important part of the materials, van Dyck says,
is that they "assist health care providers in adopting a wellness
model rather than a medical model of health care."
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