The federal government’s Make America Healthy Again Strategy, unveiled Sept. 9 in a White House news release, proposes major reforms to combat childhood chronic disease. While nutrition and environment are focal points, the strategy includes provisions targeting pediatric behavioral health, with implications for clinical care models, prescribing practices and mental health access.
Here are seven key behavioral health takeaways:
- HHS will form a working group to analyze national prescribing trends for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants and other psychiatric medications used for children. The review will examine diagnostic thresholds and seek scalable, evidence-based alternatives to pharmacologic treatment.
- HHS will evaluate the therapeutic harms and benefits of current diagnostic threshold, overprescription trends and evidence-based solutions that can be scaled to improve mental health.
- Evidence-based solutions under evaluation by HHS will include school-based interventions, diet and foster care services.
- HHS will ensure the Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Program at the Health Resources and Services Administration is effective at providing access to pediatric mental health professionals.
- The National Institutes of Health, working with HHS, will strengthen existing research by directing funding for mental health and addiction, with a special focus on screen time in children and adolescents.
- The strategy identifies a “concerning trend of overprescribed medications to children,” driven by conflicts of interest in medical research, regulation and practice, leading to unnecessary treatments and long-term health risks.
- CMS will collaborate with states to enhance prior authorization requirements and establish prescribing safeguards to address the overuse of medications in school-age children, particularly for conditions such as ADHD.
