Mental health professionals and community leaders begin a comprehensive study to improve Tulsa’s mental health system.
"Tulsa will be a place where the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness is appropriate and available to all who need it," said Zarrow Family Foundations Executive Director Bill Major.
The picture is bleak: Oklahoma has the nation’s second-highest proportion of its population suffering from mental illness but ranks 45th in access to care. The study will produce a much-needed 10-year improvement plan, which is being called the Tulsa Regional Mental Health Plan.
That follows in the footsteps of a concerted effort to improve health disparities after a 2005 report found a 14-year difference in life expectancies between parts of north and south Tulsa.
"We were able to reduce that 14-year difference in life expectancy to an 11-year difference in life expectancy," said Dr. Gerry Clancy, chair of the Tulsa Regional Mental Health Plan steering committee.
Nearly 1 million Oklahomans reported mental illness or substance abuse disorders last year, but most of them couldn’t receive treatment. Jan Figart with the Community Service Council of Tulsa said mental illness is a brain disease, and we don’t think twice when someone we know is diagnosed with a disease like cancer.
"We feel for that person and we want to help in every way, yet when someone is diagnosed with a mental illness, we oftentimes shy away from that person," Figart said. "Stigma becomes a huge issue."
Washington, D.C.–based Urban Institute will work with the local steering committee on the regional plan, which should be ready in January 2018. It’s funded by the Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation.
