A Public Health Approach to Addressing Perinatal Depression

Abstract

An estimated half a million women give birth each year in the United States; at least 13% suffer from perinatal depression. Health care professionals are essential partners in reducing the burden of this illness on women, their offspring and their families. We provide a framework for public healthclinical collaboration that promotes a population-based model for addressing perinatal depression. This approach builds upon the strengths of the current clinical model of care and supplements this individualized, treatment-focused approach. The five components of our framework provide a vision for a multidisciplinary approach to perinatal depression, including screening and public health surveillance, the influence of social and biological processes, and the design of effective service delivery models to diverse populations. A public health approach to perinatal depression expands the continuum of services available to women to include access to evidence-based preventive interventions in addition to treatment services.

Keywords:

• DEPRESSION
• PUBLIC POLICY
• PREGNANT WOMEN
• PUBLIC HEALTH