Mar 29, 2024  
2019-2020 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2019-2020 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

BHS 254 Mental Health and Public Health

3 Credit(s)
This course provides an overview of what mental health is, what mental illness is, and how they affect the public’s health at both the individual and community level. Despite the US Centers for Disease Control report that 1 in 2 people will have a diagnosed mental illness, there is a general lack of understanding about what it is and what to do about it. Stigma prevents many people from receiving needed assistance.  Policy and fiscal allocations are discussed, as are organizational responses to mental illness. This course does not take clinical approach but focuses on how systems interact to prevent, create and address normal, chronic, and acute mental distress. The benefits of wellbeing are analyzed with discussion for how it can be created for the public’s best interest. Three lecture hours per week.