Demonstrating translational research for mental health services: an example from stigma research

In seeking to understand how the goal of providing efficient and effective mental health services can best be attained, services researchers have developed principles and methods that distinguish it from other research approaches. In 2000, the National Institute of Mental Health called for translational research paradigms that seek to expand the conceptual and methodological base of mental health services with knowledge gained from basic behavioral sciences such as cognitive, developmental, and social psychology. The goal of this paper is to enter the discussion of what is translational research by illustrating a services research program of the Chicago Consortium for Stigma Research on mental illness stigma. Our research strives to explain the prejudice and discrimination that some landlords and employers show toward people with mental illness in terms of basic research from social psychology and contextual sociology. We end the paper with a discussion of the implications of this research approach for the very practical issues of trying to change mental illness stigma.