Back to the basics: Addressing our individual and societal despair.

It started with a simple question on social media, "How is everybody doing?" (Elmo [@elmo], 2024). With this basic check-in from one of our most beloved Sesame Street characters, Elmo was able to reach millions of people and elicit responses that gave words to the feelings that the authors have been personally experiencing and noticing within my behavioral health (BH) colleagues and patients for some time now. Quite simply, we are struggling. Responses to Elmo's collective check-in demonstrated the depths of the current human experience, ranging from individual sadness, trauma, existential crises, despondence, mere survival, disbelief, and societal despair. Resilience for BH providers is possible if we return to the basics, what we are foundationally trained to do, and what Elmo reminded us works so well: facilitate human connection within ourselves, with our colleagues, with our patients, and to continue to advocate for this connection at a systemic level. Exploring fundamental questions about our well-being, showing empathy for each other's pain, and openly acknowledging our shared struggles allows for a way through this, together. As we practice these efforts at the individual level, broader policies to support the BH system must follow to offer an effective, resilient, and enduring BH system necessary for the world we live in. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Integrating legal services to improve behavioral health, a challenge met from a different angle.

The United States' current healthcare delivery system is not prepared to address the expanding behavioral health (BH) crisis without treatment of upstream social determinants that contribute to downstream BH exacerbations. Medical Legal Partnerships (MLP) utilize lessons from integrated BH to create efficiencies, augment the reach of the current BH workforce, network community resources, and likely provide BH prevention at the family unit. Payment policy changes are needed, however, to provide sustainable access to these services. The current surge of federal and state funding for BH care needs may provide the policy window necessary to sustainably fund MLP lawyers as a novel, high-impact, professional on the integrated healthcare team. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Dismantling structural addiction stigma in law: Policies for systematic change.

Stigma is an under-recognized health malady that is both rampant for vulnerable communities and difficult to measure for researchers. Stigma has enormous and compounding negative health impacts, associated with lower education levels, employment and income, and poorer control of chronic conditions and illness. When stigma is embedded in the systems that govern daily life, it is considered structural stigma. Structural stigma in law has a particularly potent impact on the health and recovery of patients with substance use disorder (SUD) and addiction. Stigmatizing laws against individuals with addiction have a powerful role in downstream health, including opportunities for employment, access to health insurance, self-stereotyping, and reduced willingness to access recovery resources. Understanding and dismantling structural stigma in law, therefore, is a necessary component in comprehensively addressing SUD and addiction in collaboration with other evidence-based interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Sponsoring Institutions with Five or Fewer Residency Programs Produce a Larger Proportion of General Internists and Family Physicians.

Policymakers are increasingly interested in addressing the US primary care physician shortage and achieving measurable accountability for the products of the nation's $15 billion investment in graduate medical education (GME). Using one such measure, we found that sponsoring institutions (SIs) with ≤5 residency programs produce a higher percentage of general internists and family physicians than larger SIs.