While the prejudice and discrimination associated with mental illness has long been a concern for researchers, providers and consumers, a two-pronged malaise characterized the research agenda in the 20 years from the 1970’s through the 1990’s. However, the mid-1990s witnessed a resurgence in both research and policy efforts devoted to mental illness stigma. In this presentation, the findings from a series of collaborative, multi-method studies targeting public stigma, media, and change efforts are described. Results from the first national study of stigma in over 40 years (1996), to the first study of public stigma toward children with mental health problems (2002), to the first theoretically and methodologically coordinated study across 15 countries (2003 – present) reveal both consistent and surprising findings about the public’s view of the underlying causes of mental illness, the social rejection associated with it and its treatment, and the widespread concern with dangerousness and coercion. In addition, the impact of current stigma reductions efforts and logics (i.e., the promise of neuroscientific/biomedical explanations and the most recent PSA campaign) are evaluated in the light of recent data. Together, these studies suggest a set of principles regarding stigma and offer direction on future efforts to improve the lives of persons with mental illness, those who care for them in the community, and the practitioners who develop and deliver services in the treatment sector.

Bernice A. Pescosolido is the Distinguished and Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology at Indiana University and Director of the Indiana Consortium for Mental Health Services Research. Professor Pescosolido received a B.A. from the University of Rhode Island in 1974 and a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1982. She has focused her research and teaching on social issues in health, illness, and healing.

Prof. Pescosolido’s research agenda addresses how social networks connect individuals to their communities and to institutional structures, providing the "wires" through which people’s attitudes and actions are influenced. This agenda encompasses three basic areas: health care services, stigma, and suicide research. In the early 1990s, Prof. Pescosolido developed the Network-Episode Model which was designed to focus on how individuals come to recognize, respond to the onset of health problems, and use health care services. Specifically, it has provided new insights to understanding the patterns and pathways to care, adherence to treatment and the outcomes of health care. As a result, she has served on advisory agenda-setting efforts at the NIMH, NCI, NHLBI, NIDRR, OBSSR and presented at congressional briefings.

In the area of stigma research, Prof. Pescosolido initiated the first major, national study of stigma of mental illness in the U.S. in over 40 years. Along with Bruce Link, she led a team of researchers that analyzed this data, producing groundwork for the Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health. Currently, she and her colleagues developed a model on the underlying roots of stigma, designed to provide a scientific foundation for new efforts to alter this basic barrier to care. With funding from the Fogarty International Center, she is also leading a team of researchers in the first international study of stigma.

This lecture is an installment of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Lecture Series sponsored by the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research and organized by the NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee.

The Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee (BSSR CC), with support from the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), convenes a series of guest lectures and symposia on selected topics in the behavioral and social sciences. These presentations by prominent behavioral and social scientists provide the NIH community with overviews of current research on topics of scientific and social interest. The lectures and symposia are approximately 50 minutes in length, with additional time for questions and discussion. All seminars are open to NIH staff and to the general public.