DISCLAIMER: This episode contains outdated and potentially offensive language to describe mental illness.

While We Wait co-hosts Avni Kulkarni and Sania Ali step outside the hospital and dive headfirst into the archives to learn about a seismic shift in mental health policy that’s left the health care system scrambling to fill the cracks for decades. They examine words like “parity,” “deinstitutionalization,” and “non-quantitative treatment limits.”

Listen as Sania and Avni go back in time to make sense of it all and trace the roots of the mental health boarding crisis.

The featured guest on this episode is Andrew Sperling, former director of legislative advocacy from the National Alliance of Mental Illness and current senior director of government affairs at Intra-Cellular Therapies.

While We Wait was produced by Sania Ali and Avni Kulkarni for Health Affairs.

Theme music by Tommy Scanlon.

Related Links:

• Mental Health Policy: A Complex History (Health Affairs)
• The Kennedy Forum
• 25th Rosalynn Carter Georgia Mental Health Forum (The Carter Center)

If you or a loved one is thinking about suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text the Crisis Text Line (text HELLO to 741741). Both services are free and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All calls are confidential. You can also call 911.