What are the trends and the future for mental health care for Americas children?
On the scientific front, there is a lot of optimism among child psychiatrists. Producer Marcela Gaviria reports that the field is excited by the advances made in the last 20 years, and many experts believe they are probably 15 years away from finding a biological marker for mental illness. But funding research studies to see what therapies and medications work and are safe for kids is a challenge. Increasingly, researchers and the government are turning to the pharmaceutical industry for support. Another problem: There are very few child psychiatrists in the U.S. — only some 8,500 for the whole country, with most of them clustered in the big cities. Consequently, most children are being diagnosed and treated by family doctors or pediatricians who are less experienced at applying the diagnostic criteria and less prepared to do careful monitoring of the medications. For example, there are standard procedures that can ensure a child’s medications are properly monitored, such as checking
