Vulnerable Populations

Vulnerable Populations

History

The history of mental illness dates back to the Colonial American times, when the mentally ill were known as lunatics. It was believed that babies that slept under a full moon or was born at the time of a full moon. Lunatics were said to be influenced by Satan and were locked away. At this time there were a few procedures to expel these demons of Satan, such methods included: submerging clients in ice baths until loss of consciousness, inducing vomiting, and bleeding practice. This practice involved draining the bad blood from the patients() When Philippe Pinel of France became chief physician at a hospital for the clinically insane, he was disgusted by the barbaric conditions he found. At this time people had been chained to walls, some up to 40 years, and the community could pay to come inside and see the insane, just as one would pay to see the circus. In 1792 Pinel was recognized for his choice to unchain 5,000 or more patients, leading to the revolution of moral treatment. Then in 1843 Dorthea Dix, a social advocate in the United States, pleaded with legislators to improve conditions of hospitals and asylums. In 1946, Harry Truman passed the National Mental Health Act, this led to the making of NIMH, National Institutes of Mental Health in 1949. The mental health community continued to grow the NIMH, and in 1955 the Mental Health Study Act was passed along with the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963. The CMHC led to the deinstitutionalization of the chronically mentally ill (Martin, 2007).

Demographics

According to the 2004 U.S. Census around 57.7 million people suffer from some form of mental illness over the age of 18. Only about six percent of the population suffers from a serious mental illness that is 1 in 17 people. In the United States and Canada, mental illness is one of the leading causes of disability among people. Almost half of this population meets the criteria for two or more mental disorders (National Institue of Mental Health, 2012). According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) in 2008 the demographics for the mentally ill was categorized by race, gender, and age. The female population was at 6%, whereas, the male was half that at 3%. Regarding age, people between 18-25 years ranged at approximately 8%, 26-49 years were estimated at 6%, and persons 50 or over had the lowest at 2%. When races is accounted for, persons who are two or more races range the highest at 6%, the White race has the second highest population at 5%, the Hispanic