Last week, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) introduced the Roadmap for Behavioral Health Integration, to advance the White House Strategy to Address our National Mental Health Crisis announced earlier this year. The HHS paper explains policy and programs that will build three pillars of the national strategy: 1) Strengthen System Capacity by developing a diverse workforce; 2) Connect Americans to Care through health financing; and 3) Support Americans by Creating Healthy Environments with investments in behavioral health, upstream prevention, and recovery. The Roadmap includes rural communities as part of its cross-cutting equity priority, but does not cover all of the behavioral health initiatives across the Department; important efforts already underway include the HHS Overdose Prevention Strategy and the new three-digit 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
