The Economics of Mental Health Care

This title was first published in 2001. This original study of mental health care presents a conceptual approach to the nature of the industry's multiple outputs. It pays special attention to the economic role of government, and also uses conventional economic theory to analyze the fact that the needs and wants of people with mental illnesses and their care-givers are frequently neglected.

Ruth F.G. Williams, Dr, School of Applied Economics, Victoria University of Technology, Australia and D.P. Doessel, Dr, Department of Economics, The University of Queensland, Australia. Ruth Williams has held academic positions in Brisbane and Melbourne since 1988. She is currently a Lecturer in the School of Applied Economics at the Victoria University. Her research interests are in health economics. She has authored papers in Economic Papers and Telecommunications Policy, and has a chapter in Choice and Change: The Ethics, Politics and Economics of Public Health. Her co-authored papers have been published in the Journal of Health Economics, the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery and the Australian Journal of Public Health. Darrel Doessel has held a full-time academic position since 1974. Currently, he is a Reader in Economics at The University of Queensland. His research interests are in the fields of welfare economics, public finance and health economics. He has co-edited the journal, Economic Analysis and Policy, the Proceedings of the Australian Conference of Health Economists and Health Economics: Australian Readings (1989). He has also edited Towards Evaluation in General Practice (1990) and The General Practice Evaluation Program (1993). He is the author of An Economic Analysis of End-Stage Renal Disease (1978), Cost-Benefit Analysis and Water Fluoridation (1979) and The Economics of Medical Diagnosis: Technological Change and Health Expenditure (1992) He is also co-author of The Economics of Natural Disaster Relief in Australia (1979)

Contents: Introduction; Economics and mental health care; Some methodological issues; The welfare economics of mental health care; A survey of the economics of mental health care; The outputs of mental health care: I; The outputs of mental health care: II; The role of government in mental health care: a normative analysis; Mental health care in the household sector; Multiple inputs: the role of social capital in community-based strategies; Co-production and community-based services; Summary and future research; References; Indices.