National Institute for Mental Health
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| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | April 15, 1949 |
| Headquarters | Bethesda, Maryland, U.S. |
| Annual budget | $1.5 billion (2016) |
| Agency executives |
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| Parent agency | National Institutes of Health |
| Website | http://www.nimh.nih.gov |
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research.
NIMH is the largest research organization in the world specializing in mental illness. Joshua A. Gordon is the current Director of NIMH. The institute was first authorized by the U.S. Government in 1946, when then President Harry Truman signed into law the National Mental Health Act, although the institute was not formally established until 1949.
NIMH is a $1.5 billion enterprise, supporting research on mental health through grants to investigators at institutions and organizations throughout the United States and through its own internal (intramural) research effort. The mission of NIMH is "to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery, and cure."
In order to fulfill this mission, NIMH "must foster innovative thinking and ensure that a full array of novel scientific perspectives are used to further discovery in the evolving science of brain, behavior, and experience. In this way, breakthroughs in science can become breakthroughs for all people with mental illnesses."
NIMH has identified four overarching strategic objectives for itself:
Mental health has traditionally been a state responsibility, but after World War II there was increased lobbying for a federal (national) initiative. Attempts to create a National Neuropsychiatric Institute failed. Robert H. Felix, then head of the Division of Mental Hygiene, orchestrated a movement to include mental health policy as an integral part of federal biomedical policy. Congressional subcommittees hearings were held and the National Mental Health Act was signed into law in 1946. This aimed to support the research, prevention and treatment of psychiatric illness, and called for the establishment of a National Advisory Mental Health Council (NAMHC) and a National Institute of Mental Health. On April 15, 1949, the NIMH was formally established, with Felix as director. Funding for the NIMH grew slowly and then, from the mid-1950s, dramatically. The institute took on a highly influential role in shaping policy, research and communicating with the public, legitimizing the importance of new advances in biomedical science, psychiatric and psychological services, and community-based mental health policies.
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