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Members of an APA-backed coalition of psychiatric researchers joined a group of citizen advocates in a recent meeting with hundreds of Senators, Representatives, and Capitol Hill staffers to argue for increased funds earmarked in next year's federal budget for mental health and substance abuse research.
Founded 15 years ago by APA, the Academic Consortium has been setting "the gold standard for grass-roots lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill" by bringing researchers and clinicians together with patients and family members, said APA Medical Director Steven Mirin, M.D.
Mirin addressed the advocates who gathered at APA headquarters prior to their short journey to the Hill. The success of the advocacy effort became especially evident, he said, once APA enlisted the talents of family members, mental health consumers, and other supporters in the project.
Consortium representatives have met with an impressive degree of success over the last few years in showing lawmakers "the solid science behind the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders," Mirin stated.
These face-to-face meetings with members of Congress or their legislative staffs, Mirin pointed out, can have a tremendous impact on the course of both budget and policy decisions. More than 100 meetings were scheduled. Anticipating that some of the volunteer lobbyists could be discouraged if they arrive for their Hill appointments and find themselves meeting with a staff person rather than with their Senator or Representative. Mirin advised that it is often these staffers who develop the recommendations and write the legislation on which Congress eventually votes.
Lewis Judd, M.D., chair of the psychiatry department at the University of California at San Diego and one of the founders of the consortium, stated proudly that the group's efforts were largely responsible for some of the significant budget increases that the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism enjoyed in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The consortium's advocacy also played a role in moving these three institutes into the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which heightened their visibility.
The consortium's influence grows exponentially with each encounter between mental health funding advocates and lawmakers, similar to the impressive benefits that come from compounding of interest and dividends, Judd noted.
More specific lobbying advice came from Laurie Flynn, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and psychiatric researcher David Kupfer, M.D., chair of the psychiatry department at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh.
Flynn pointed out that while there is substantial support on Capitol Hill this year for increasing the budget for NIH's research mission, members of Congress need to be reminded-and some still need to be convinced-that investing in research on psychiatric disorders is a worthwhile investment. The most powerful way to illustrate this point, she said, is for family members of mentally ill individuals to describe their personal experiences for legislators and their staffs.
"Talk about what [mental illness] means one life at a time," she urged. "You open doors with your own experience. It makes a lasting impact, and that's what [members of Congress and their aides] will remember and talk about after you leave."
Kupfer, who cochairs the Academic Consortium along with Judd, reinforced Flynn's emphasis on making the presentations to Congress as personal as possible. He also stressed how critical it is for the constituent-lobbyists to build long-term relationships with the members and Hill staffers with whom they meet. The strength of these relationships is the most important aspect of the advocacy effort, he stated.
Congress has to be made to realize that "investing in biomedical research brings the biggest returns" of any area in which the government invests, Judd emphasized.
For the Fiscal 1999 budget, APA and its allies are urging Congress to appropriate $900.8 million for NIMH, $658.9 million for NIDA, and $262.2 million for NIAAA. The appropriation recommendations for each of these institutes contains specific funding amounts for basic and clinical research, programs to train new researchers, and research management and support.
These three amounts are identical to those in the "professional judgment budget," which is the amount NIH scientists believe is needed to fund their current research mission fully for the next fiscal year. These recommendations go beyond appropriations that President Clinton has suggested, though he is calling for increases over last year for all three institutes. His budget recommends that $809.7 million go to NIMH, $576.3 million to NIDA, and $245.7 million to NIAAA.
A broad range of professional and citizen advocacy groups concerned about mental illness and the people who suffer from it has also endorsed the appropriation recommendations for which APA and the consortium are lobbying. Among the more than 30 such organizations that have signed the mental health community's NIH funding recommendations are the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Private Practice Psychiatrists, American Psychoanalytic Association, National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems, American Psychological Association, National Association of Social Workers, Anxiety Disorders Association of America, Mental Health America, and National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association.