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Winner of the 2016 NYASA Book Award presented by the New York African Studies Association When students are introduced to the study of diversity and social justice, it is usually from sociological and psychological perspectives. The scholars and activists featured in this anthology reject this approach as too limiting, insisting that we adopt a view that is both transdisciplinary and multiperspectival. Their essays focus on the components of diversity, social justice, and inclusive excellence, not just within the United States but in other parts of the world. They examine diversity in the contexts of culture, race, class, gender, learned ability and dis/ability, religion, sexual orientation, and citizenship, and explore how these concepts and identities interrelate. The result is a book that will provide readers with a better theoretical understanding of diversity studies and will enable them to see and think critically about oppression and how systems of oppression may be challenged.

Mental health and substance use disorders among children, youth, and young adults are major threats to the health and well-being of younger populations which often carryover into adulthood. The costs of treatment for mental health and addictive disorders, which create an enormous burden on the affected individuals, their families, and society, have stimulated increasing interest in prevention practices that can impede the onset or reduce the severity of the disorders. Prevention practices have emerged in a variety of settings, including programs for selected at-risk populations (such as children and youth in the child welfare system), school-based interventions, interventions in primary care settings, and community services designed to address a broad array of mental health needs and populations. Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People updates a 1994 Institute of Medicine book, Reducing Risks for Mental Disorders , focusing special attention on the research base and program experience with younger populations that have emerged since that time. Researchers, such as those involved in prevention science, mental health, education, substance abuse, juvenile justice, health, child and youth development, as well as policy makers involved in state and local mental health, substance abuse, welfare, education, and justice will depend on this updated information on the status of research and suggested directions for the field of mental health and prevention of disorders.

Americans' perceptions of childhood disability have changed dramatically over the past century, as have their ideas about health and illness, medical developments, threats to children's health and development, and expectations for child functioning. Neal Halfon, Amy Houtrow, Kandyce Larson, and Paul Newacheck examine how these changes have influenced the risk of poor health and disability and how recent policies to address the needs of children with disabilities have evolved. The authors examine the prevalence in the United States of childhood disability and of the conditions responsible for impairment, as well as trends in the prevalence of chronic conditions associated with disability. They find that childhood disability is increasing and that emotional, behavioral, and neurological disabilities are now more prevalent than physical impairments. They stress the importance of, and lack of progress in, improving socioeconomic disparities in disability prevalence, as well as the need for better measures and greater harmonization of data and data sources across different child-serving agencies and levels of government. They call on policy makers to strengthen existing data systems to advance understanding of the causes of childhood disabilities and guide the formulation of more strategic, responsive, and effective policies, programs, and interventions. The authors offer a new and forward-looking definition of childhood disability that reflects emerging and developmentally responsive notions of childhood health and disability. They highlight the relationship between health, functioning, and the environment; the gap in function between a child's abilities and the norm; and how that gap limits the child's ability to engage successfully with his or her world. Their definition also recognizes the dynamic nature of disability and how the experience of disability can be modified by the child's environment.

Policy Points Social policies such as policies advancing universal childcare to expand Medicaid coverage of home‐ and community‐based care for seniors and people with disabilities and for universal preschool are the types of policies needed to address social determinants of poor mental health. Population‐based global budgeting approaches like accountable care and total cost of care models have the potential to improve population mental health by incentivizing health systems to control costs while simultaneously improving outcomes for the populations they serve. Policies expanding reimbursement for services delivered by peer support specialists are needed. People with lived experience of mental illness are uniquely well suited to helping their peers navigate treatment and other support services.

This study explores the interrelated roles of health and welfare state policies in the decision to take up disability insurance (DI) benefits due to work disability (WD), defined as the (partial) inability to engage in gainful employment as a result of physical or mental illness. We exploit the large international variation of health, self-reported WD, and the uptake of DI benefits in the United States and Europe using a harmonized data set with life history information assembled from SHARE, ELSA, and HRS. We find that the mismatch between WD and DI benefit receipt varies greatly across countries. Objective health explains a substantial share of the within-country variation in DI, but this is not the case for the variation across countries. Rather, most of the variation between countries and the mismatches are explained by differences in DI policies.

Alzheimer's Disease and Other Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) leads to frequent emergency department (ED) and inpatient use. Mental health symptoms among persons with AD/ADRD increases cognitive and functional disabilities and could contribute to these high rates of intensive health care use. The objective of this paper is to assess the relationship of mental illness on 12-month patterns in hospitalization and ED use among Veterans aged 65 and over with a new AD/ADRD diagnosis. We used an existing dataset of administrative electronic health record data of Veterans with AD/ADRD from the US Veterans Health Administration linked with Medicare claims data from 2011-2015. We use multivariable logistic regression to examine the association between no pre-existing mental illness, pre-existing mental illness (e.g., major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder), and pre-existing severe mental illness-or SMI-(e.g., bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder with psychosis, or schizophrenia) and 12- month ED and hospitalization use and readmissions among Veterans who had an initial hospitalization visit. We estimated predicted probabilities, differential effect, and associated 95% confidence intervals. In our sample, 1.4% had SMI and 11% had non-SMI mental illness. The unadjusted percentage with inpatient and ED use was higher among Veterans with SMI (34% and 26%, respectively) and Veterans with non-SMI mental illness (20%, 16%) compared with Veterans without pre-existing mental illness (12%, 9%). Compared to individuals with no pre-existing mental illness, having a pre-existing mental illness (1.27 percentage points, 95% CI: 0.76, 1.78) and a pre-existing SMI (7.17 percentage points, 95% CI: 5.66, 8.69) were both associated with an increased likelihood of ED use. The same pattern was observed for any inpatient use (mental illness 2.18, 95% CI: 1.59, 2.77; SMI 9.91, 95% CI: 8.21, 11.61). Only pre-existing SMI was associated higher hospitalization readmission. Pre-existing mental illness increases use of high cost, intensive health care and this association is higher of more severe mental health conditions. We also show that pre-existing mental illness exerts a unique influence, above and beyond other comorbidities, such as diabetes, on ED and inpatient visits. More needs to be done to increase recognition of the unique risks of this combination of health conditions and encourage strategies to address them. Developing, testing, and implementing comprehensive strategies that address the intersection of ADRD and mental illness is promising approach that requires more focused attention.

There has been concern about the capacity of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system to provide care for veterans returning from war zones in the Middle East and Afghanistan.We used two nationally representative surveys of US veterans in 2001 and 2010 to examine changes in the veteran population and veterans' use of health care services after a decade of war. The population was older and more diverse in 2010 than in 2001. In both years, veterans who served in the World War II era or earlier were more likely to have been exposed to combat-related trauma than veterans of more recent service eras. In 2010 veterans who served in the Persian Gulf War era (1990 through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) were more likely to have used VA mental health services and to have received VA disability compensation than veterans of previous service eras. Compared to veterans in 2001, those in 2010 were two times more likely to have used any VA health services and were more likely to have received VA disability compensation. These findings highlight changes in the veteran population over time that are important to consider in planning for future VA services.

The objective of this study was to identify utilization of housing support provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) among autistic people in the U.S. Using 2008 and 2016 Medicaid data, we identified autistic individuals birth to 61 years and linked them to national HUD data. We characterized demographics, co-occurring conditions, and HUD program involvement. Autistic Medicaid enrollees enrolled in HUD increased by 70% between 2008 and 2016. Among 846,350 autistic Medicaid enrollees in 2016, 10.4% (n = 88,315) were HUD-assisted. HUD-assisted autistic individuals, versus non-HUD-assisted, were more likely to be Black/African American and less likely to have private insurance. Most lived in urban areas and were enrolled in the Housing Choice Voucher program. Approximately 2,600 autistic individuals (3%) were homeless at HUD entry. Growing numbers of HUD-assisted autistic individuals point toward an urgent need for federal data to understand and address public health contexts of housing affordability and instability to complement existing clinical autism research investments. Integrated public health, housing, and disability supports must address equitable income supports and housing assistance needed to support the health needs of autistic individuals.

D. Wayne Osgood, E. Michael Foster, and Mark E. Courtney examine the transition to adulthood for youth involved in social service and justice systems during childhood and adolescence. They survey the challenges faced by youth in the mental health system, the foster care system, the juvenile justice system, the criminal justice system, and special education, and by youth with physical disabilities and chronic illness, as well as runaway and homeless youth. One problem is that the services these vulnerable populations receive from these systems as children and adolescents often end abruptly as they transition to adulthood, even though the need for them continues. Youth must leave systems tailored for clients their age and, if they are eligible for further services at all, enter adult systems that are not equipped to address their needs. One exception is the special education system, whose services extend into early adulthood and are designed for individuals' needs. The authors review current public policies directed toward vulnerable youth in transition and find problems in four areas: eligibility criteria that exclude youth from services that might benefit them, inadequate funding for transition services, a lack of coordination across service systems, and inadequate training about young-adult developmental issues for service professionals. The authors then discuss policy options that can help create a developmentally appropriate and socially inclusive system of support for vulnerable youth. Among the options are strengthening all programs for youth in transition, improving the existing systems of care for children and adolescents, addressing the loss of access to services at the age of majority, and coordinating today's multiple systems into a single coherent system. The authors see heightened governmental interest in better supports for vulnerable young adults, both through expanding the federal role in their lives and through improving coordination of the systems that serve them. The Fostering Connections Act of 2008, for example, extended services to adolescents in foster care from the age of eighteen to the age of twenty-one.