Predictors of structural stigma in state mental health legislation during the Trump administration

ABSTRACT

Mental healthcare interventions are effective, yet services and access remain limited, as most bills and appropriations fail. Forms of structural stigma exist in mental healthcare policymaking, but research is limited regarding factors affecting their presence. Thus, a content analysis was conducted on mental health-related legislation in order to identify forms of structural stigma as well as any legislative influences. Findings indicated that (1) legislator political party, chamber, and gender were all significantly associated with structural stigma, while (2) Republican party membership was a significant predictor. Mental health advocates may utilize these findings when targeting policymakers in their stigma reduction efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• Structural stigma
• mental health
• mental illness
• state policy
• legislation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Karen Suhaka, the owner of LegiNation, for her help with dataset creation and data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Stigma can be directed toward (1) individuals with diagnosed mental illnesses and/or (2) mental healthcare at-large (e.g., individuals receiving mental healthcare treatments without diagnoses or the mental healthcare system overall). Further, a bill may refer to mental healthcare, but not mental illness specifically. Thus, in order to capture issues relevant to the concepts of both mental illness and mental health (forms of stigma or bills relevant to either concept), one abbreviated term was used throughout the manuscript.