Epidemiology and evaluative studies are laying the groundwork for effective action in such areas. Psychiatry faces a number of challenges. The first is dealing with the stigma that is still attached to mental illness. Tuberculosis faced this same stigma until cures were found, and cancer was once in a similar position. Unfortunately, psychiatry remains under this cloud.
People fear for their jobs if it becomes known that they have sought psychiatric help.
Employers are aware of the cost to their businesses from psychiatric illness, absenteeism, or poor performance but are most reluctant to talk about this publicly unless they can remain anonymous. There are, it must be noted, courageous exceptions. The media lose no opportunity to emphasize dangerous behaviour when a person may have a mental illness or, worse, has just been discharged from a psychiatric hospital. The public is afraid and assumes against available evidence that these individuals are prominent public dangers. Another challenge for psychiatry is to avoid splitting into a divergent number of areas of practice, knowledge, and research, be they by age or particular condition.