State mental hospitals and their host communities: The origins of hostile public reactions

Abstract

This article examines the hostile public reactions of a community that, through a state policy to consolidate all long-term behavioral health services, was to become the site of the state's only mental hospital. A telephone survey conducted in the host community (n = 800) and a matched community (n = 800) was used to test whether the origins of hostility toward consolidation were related to the public's negative attitudes toward mental illness and homelessness or to the beliefs about the discharge and supervisory behavior of the hospital. The host community was not found to have more negative views of mental illness, although it did have significantly more negative views about the homeless. Disapproval of consolidation was unrelated to negative views of mental illness or homelessness but was strongly related to the expected "bad" behavior of the hospital. These results suggest that the best way to improve relations between hospitals and their host communities is for hospitals to behave like "good" neighbors.