Curtailing the communicability of psychiatric disorders

Abstract

Although psychiatric disorders are classified as non-communicable diseases, we believe this classification is too rigid and limiting. We present evidence of the communicability of psychiatric disorders through three major pathways: infectious and ecological, familial, and sociocultural communicability. Successful strategies developed to control the spread of communicable infectious diseases are relevant to curtailing the communicability of psychiatric disorders, thereby reducing their burden. Current interventions and policies that conceptualise psychiatric illnesses as non-communicable mostly focus on the individual. By applying strategies from infectious disease and chronic illness prevention models within a socioecological framework, we posit a broad communicable chronic disease psychiatric illness control plan for effectively treating the patient with the psychiatric disorder (host) as early as possible, providing benefits to their family and the community, and preventing transmission to others.

Development of an Evidence-Informed and Codesigned Model of Support for Children of Parents With a Mental Illness— “It Takes a Village” Approach

“…Providing targeted intervention support to parents and their children can help break the cycle of intergenerational transmission of mental illness and improve outcomes for children of parents with a mental illness (20). Several approaches to address the intergenerational impacts have been outlined worldwide (21).…”

Merging Helicobacter pylori eradication and family history-based genetic counseling in patients with gastric cancer: towards an overarching approach in clinical practice

“…Thus, the suggestion that intrafamilial transmission of H. pylori contributes to shared strain-induced common gastric cancer needs to be validated in independent settings before concrete clinical guidelines are formulated; nevertheless, the margins between the notion of communicable and non-communicable diseases would become looser if that scenario is validated. Besides, the idea that non-communicable diseases may in fact be communicable is not novel; this notion has been previously suggested in different contexts and settings [ 16 , 17 ].…”

Where Should Orphaned and Separated Children and Adolescents Live: Comparing Institutionalized- and Family-Based Venues in Kenya

“…Parents and children from low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) may have a myriad of health and social challenges that increase the risk of parental death, chronic conditions, or acute serious illnesses in parents or children, or family economic hardships that can result in child abandonment or orphanhood. Such conditions can include HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, physical or mental trauma, undermanaged chronic diseases, mental health disabilities, 1 civil strife, extreme poverty with food and housing insecurities, and many others. The intergenerational consequence of such parental death or family disruption is that vulnerable children can be orphaned, abandoned, or separated because of war, civil strife, or related to immigration policy, such as at the US-Mexico border.…”