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APA 2017 will emphasize collaboration, prevention and innovation
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SAN DIEGO — Following this year’s theme of “prevention through partnerships,” the 170th annual meeting of the APA will highlight the importance of collaborative care within mental health and all medical fields.
“We are learning more every day of risk factors and early signs of mental illness that can help us intervene and prevent more serious outcomes,” APA president Maria A. Oquendo, MD, PhD, said during a press briefing. “We’re also seeing profound changes in psychiatry, including more integration of mental health care with primary care. Working together with our colleagues in medicine and related fields, we can do a better job of screening, diagnosing and treating mental illness.”
Key speakers include Elizabeth Vargas, journalist and co-anchor of ABC’s 20/20, Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, and Vice Adm. Raquel C. Bono, MD, director of the Defense Health Agency.
A national poll will be released during the meeting, according to Saul Levin, MD, MPA, CEO and medical director of the APA.
“This is our second annual poll,” Levin said during the briefing. “We’ll be able to track how Americans’ attitudes have changed from 2016 to 2017 on several key issues, such as whether they think mental health is a priority with policymakers.”
Researchers surveyed more than 1,000 American adults on their attitudes and beliefs about mental health and how their anxiety levels changed within the past year. Participants were also surveyed on the opioid crisis and its impact on their daily lives.
The scientific program will include approximately 450 sessions on topics including addiction, pediatric and adolescent, geriatric, forensic and military psychiatry.
Interactive sessions will feature Alan F. Schatzberg, MD, of Stanford University; Peter D. Kramer, MD, of Brown University; Nora D. Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; and Joshua Gordon, MD, MPH, director of the NIMH.
The program will also include a “Frontiers in Science” series of sessions led by nonpsychiatrists on topics such as the impact of food on general and mental health, the application of suicide risk research into practice, and adolescent psychiatry.
An “Innovation Zone” will serve as a space for young leaders in psychiatry to present new technologies for improving the clinician-patient interaction and advancing the future of psychiatry.
The meeting takes place May 20 to 24 in San Diego.
Healio.com/Psychiatry will be onsite in San Diego throughout the meeting, so stay tuned for the latest news and developments, videos and physician perspectives and more.
To keep up with the latest meeting news coverage, visit http://www.healio.com/psychiatry/meeting-news.