Primary health-behavioral health integration for the population of individuals with serious mental illness

Abstract

Within the larger framework of addressing primary health and behavioral health (BH) integration, this chapter focuses on the provision of integrated health and BH (mental health and/or substance abuse and/or cognitive disabilities) services for individuals who are categorized as having "serious" mental illness (SMI), including (but not limited to) the subset of individuals labeled as serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI) or (in some states) serious and disabling mental illness (SDMI). This chapter focuses largely on adults, but when relevant, we comment as well on the provision of integrated health and BH services to children with “serious emotional disturbances (SED)” And their families.