دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی آینده بهداشت رفتاری نیروی کار: خوش بینی و فرصت - الزویر 2018

The U.S. mental health system faces considerable challenges in delivering behavioral health care to populations in need. More than 44 million American adults have a diagnosable mental health condition, and rates of severe depression are worsening among youth.1 Concurrently, drug overdose deaths fueled by opioid misuse are skyrocketing, having more than tripled from 1999–2016.2 This epidemic led the federal government to declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency in 2017, bringing critical attention to the dire need for providers to engage in prevention and treatment interventions.3 State and federal policies supporting mental health parity, reimbursement, and insurance expansion have collectively improved access to care,4–7 yet as the rates of uninsured adults decrease, more than half of the population with mental health conditions still does not receive needed treatment.8 With no indication that trends will reverse in the near future, a behavioral health workforce that was already in a state of shortage is now that much more stretched. In its broadest definition, the behavioral health workforce includes all who provide prevention or treatment services for mental health or substance use disorders. This includes a multitude of licensed and certified professionals, peer workers, case coordinators, and paraprofessional workers. Although definitions vary throughout the field, all have one thing in common: No matter who is counted as a behavioral health worker, the collective supply falls far short of needed demand. A 2016 report released by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) projected the supply of workers in selected behavioral health professions to be approximately 250,000 workers short of the demand projections by 2025,9 an astoundingly large number that may be worthy of a public health emergency declaration of its own.