SAFE GC Coalition: Confronting Addiction From Prevention to Recovery

According to the president of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an awakening among the public to the fundamental importance of mental health and to what psychiatry can offer. Rather than suffer in silence, more and more people are publicly discussing their struggles with mental illness and substance use disorders in an open and honest way that would have been hard to imagine a few years ago.

The APA sees this openness as an opportunity for psychiatry to make a difference, particularly with youth; the LGBTQ+ communities; and minority/under-represented groups, who continue to be impacted by health care disparities and structural racism by providing adequate access to care but also goes beyond the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of psychiatric disorders. The AMA will take every opportunity to make themselves heard, by empowering their members to directly engage the public, expand their workforce, demonstrate their expertise to capitalize on the world’s newfound awareness of the centrality of mental health in people’s well-being.

Confronting Addiction From Prevention to Recovery is the new theme and focus of the APA’s leadership. A work group has been established who will develop, review, and promote content for quarterly public education campaigns centered around four topics: vaping, opioids, alcohol, and technology (internet gaming/social media). AMA leaders are strategizing on how to bring addiction prevention and treatment to the forefront of health care. In April, an Advocacy Coalition composed of professional organizations of family medicine, internal medicine, OB/GYN, osteopathic medicine, pediatrics, and psychiatry to engage the permanent, administrative staff of these like-minded organizations to optimize chances for sustainable gains in fighting the opioid epidemic.