The Disparate Roots and Potential Development of Alaska's Public Behavioral Health System

The community mental health center era in the United States was based on delivering services cataloged in three areas of behavioral health needs; (1) primary prevention of mental illness: the prevention of illness before it develops; (2) secondary prevention services: the early treatment of mental illness to reduce the severity of illness, and (3) tertiary prevention: treatment aimed at the reduction of the burdens of chronic mental illness. To attain these goals in a particular state in the United States has been very difficult, and Alaska, which has only been a state since 1959, is not close to attaining these goals. As a matter of fact, this paper will demonstrate that Alaska has had more trouble than most states in providing even rudimentary services in several of these areas. Yet, because of a curious constellation of factors, this paper presents the reader with a hopeful possible alignment of programs which, if more fully developed and linked in Alaska, can become an integrated public behavioral health system open to all the residents in the state.