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Abstract
By the 1990s, sociology faced a frustrating paradox. Classic work on mental illness stigma and labeling theory reinforced that the "mark" of mental illness created prejudice and discrimination for individuals and family members. Yet that foundation, coupled with deinstitutionalization of mental health care, produced contradictory responses. Claims that stigma was dissipating were made, while others argued that intervention efforts were needed to reduce stigma.While signaling the critical role of theory-based research in establishing the pervasive effects of stigma, both claims directed resources away from social science research. Yet the contemporary scientific foundation underlying both claims was weak. A reply came in a resurgence of research directed toward mental illness stigma nationally and internationally, bringing together researchers from different disciplines for the first time. I report on the general population's attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral dispositions that targeted public stigma and implications for the next decade of research and intervention efforts.
Keywords
discrimination, General Social Survey, mental illness, sociology of mental health, stigma
In the 1993 Emmy-winning HBO movie And the Band Played On, epidemiologists from multiple disciplines, including public health, medicine, and sociology, confronted the rising infection and stag- gering death rate from the disease that would later be known as HIV/AIDS.1 Actor Charles Martin Smith played Dr. Harold laffe, who in 1981 became an epidemic intelligence service officer, joining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) task force assigned to study the earliest cases. At several points during the film, he asks, "What do we think? What do we know? What can we prove?" This refrain seems an apt borrow from the CDC to apply here because stigma research, policies, and programs surrounding mental illness have been based on answers to each of these questions, and not always to good result.
The past few decades have witnessed continuity and change in our understanding of and response to the stigma of mental illness. Declarations by leaders in psychiatry that stigma has dissipated in the United States, for example, implied that neither research nor social action of any kind was necessary (Pescosolido et al. 2010). The work had been done, the problem solved. At the same time, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) program staff members, convinced of the continued trauma that stigma leveled...