Mental Health and Substance Use Workforce for Older Adults: In Whose Hands.

摘要

The burden of mental illness and substance use disorders in older adults in the United States borders on a crisis. Yet, this crisis is largely hidden from the public and many of those who develop policy and programs to care for older people. In contrast, concerns about the physical health care needs of the growing number of older Americans abound, even in the face of exploding Medicare costs and the federal budget deficit. Concerns about how to meet these needs led Congress to commission a report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on the physical health care needs of this population and the geriatric health care workforce required to meet them, resulting in the 2008 IOM report Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce. Following the release of the 2008 report, Congress wisely recognized the largely hidden crisis of mental health and substance use disorders in older adults and commissioned the IOM to convene a committee to study and report on the workforce needed to care for these older Americans.