
From the U.S. Code Online via GPO Access
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[Laws in effect as of January 23, 2000]
[Document not affected by Public Laws enacted between
  January 23, 2000 and December 4, 2001]
[CITE: 42USC9401]

 
                 TITLE 42--THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
 
                   CHAPTER 102--MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEMS
 
Sec. 9401. Congressional statement of findings

    The Congress finds--
        (1) despite the significant progress that has been made in 
    making community mental health services available and in improving 
    residential mental health facilities since the original community 
    mental health centers legislation was enacted in 1963, unserved and 
    underserved populations remain and there are certain groups in the 
    population, such as chronically mentally ill individuals, children 
    and youth, elderly individuals, racial and ethnic minorities, women, 
    poor persons, and persons in rural areas, which often lack access to 
    adequate private and public mental health services and support 
    services;
        (2) the process of transferring or diverting chronically 
    mentally ill individuals from unwarranted or inappropriate 
    institutionalized settings to their home communities has frequently 
    not been accompanied by a process of providing those individuals 
    with the mental health and support services they need in community-
    based settings;
        (3) the shift in emphasis from institutional care to community-
    based care has not always been accompanied by a process of affording 
    training, retraining, and job placement for employees affected by 
    institutional closure and conversion;
        (4) the delivery of mental health and support services is 
    typically uncoordinated within and among local, State, and Federal 
    entities;
        (5) mentally ill persons are often inadequately served by (A) 
    programs of the Department of Health and Human Services such as 
    medicare, medicaid, supplemental security income, and social 
    services, and (B) programs of the Department of Housing and Urban 
    Development, the Department of Labor, and other Federal agencies;
        (6) health care systems often lack general health care personnel 
    with adequate mental health care training and often lack mental 
    health care personnel and consequently many individuals with some 
    level of mental disorder do not receive appropriate mental health 
    care;
        (7) present knowledge of methods to prevent mental illness 
    through discovery and elimination of its causes and through early 
    detection and treatment is too limited;
        (8) a comprehensive and coordinated array of appropriate private 
    and public mental health and support services for all people in need 
    within specific geographic areas, based upon a cooperative local-
    State-Federal partnership, remains the most effective and humane way 
    to provide a majority of mentally ill individuals with mental health 
    care and needed support; and
        (9) because of the rising demand for mental health services and 
    the wide disparity in the distribution of psychiatrists, clinical 
    psychologists, social workers, and psychiatric nurses, there is a 
    shortage in the medical specialty of psychiatry and there are also 
    shortages among the other health personnel who provide mental health 
    services.

(Pub. L. 96-398, Sec. 2, Oct. 7, 1980, 94 Stat. 1565.)


                               Short Title

    Section 1 of Pub. L. 96-398 provided that: ``This Act [enacting this 
chapter, amending sections 210, 225a, 229b, 242a, 246, 289k-1, 300l-2, 
300m-2, 1396b, 2689a to 2689c, 2689e, 2689g, and 2689h of this title, 
repealing section 2689q of this title, and enacting provisions set out 
as notes under section 242a, 246, 289k-1, and 2689b of this title] may 
be cited as the `Mental Health Systems Act'.''
