School shootings and other mass gun murders, the opioid crisis, homelessness — these social ills all could be improved with adequate attention to the mental-health infrastructure in America. What is missing in most of this current national discussion is that mental-health evaluation and treatment should be a primary part of the solution.
As a family physician, I contend that mental-health evaluation and treatment is too late if we only concentrate on the prospective shooter, the addict, or the schizophrenic person who is living on the street. Do not misunderstand me: We need to help these individuals. What I am specifically saying is that we need to help them, as well as the vast number of people with mental-health diseases, when the diseases first occur or even before they occur.