The Scattergood Program for Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health Care is housed in the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. The ScattergoodEthics Program aims to elevate the national conversation about the ethics of research, treatment, and delivery of behavioral health care.
UPCOMING Conference
Recovering Inside? Ethical Issues in Correctional Mental Health Care
October 20, 2016
The National Constitution Center
Philadelphia, PA
More Information & Registration
KeY Resource
Revisiting the Goldwater Rule: Psychiatry, Ethics, & Politics
Read the original Fact Magazine issue that sparked today's controversy about psychiatrists speculating about presidential candidates' mental health.
New Publication
The Ethics of Behavioral Health Information Technology: Frequent Flyer Icons & Implicit Bias
This Viewpoint discusses the ethics of using an icon in electronic health records to designate patients who have frequent visits.
More From ScattergoodEthics
The Prodromal Schizophrenia Empirical and Ethical Nexus (PSEEN) Initiative
The PSEEN Initiative aims to indentify and examine ethical and policy issues generated by rapidly advancing technoligies that will allow early detection and possibly prevention of psychosis spectrum disorders.
In partnership with the Neuropsychiatry Section in Penn's Department of Psychiatry, we will approach these issues along two research tracks: empirical bioethics and normative analysis.
Key problems to be addressed by this initiative will be to clarify the concept of prodromal psychosis and examine derivative ethical challenges, such as appropriate disclosure of risk information, mitigating stigma, and respecting the autonomy of adolescents as transitional decision makers.
The PSEEN Initiative is supported a grant from the Greenwall Foundation.
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In the News
The Public's Health | Waking up about sleep: A public health need, overlooked | September 7, 2016 | Read the Aricle
The Philadelphia Inquirer | Why should behavioral health care be any different? | June 29, 2016 | Read Article
WHYY's The Pulse | We're at a point of historic reckoning on standards for behavioral health care | June 17, 2016 | Listen
New York Times | Psychiatric Institutions Are a Necessity | May 9, 2016 | Read Essay
WHYY Newsworks | Group of ethicists to examine mental health care behind bars | March 7, 2016 | Read Article
Health Magazine | All About the Psychedelic Club Drug Being Used to Treat Depression | November 4, 2015 | Read Article
Social Work Today | "Article Stirs Debate on Long-Term Psychiatric Care" | July-August | Read Article
The Philadelphia Inquirer | "Bill a good start in reforming mental-health care" | July 2, 2015 | Read Article
Recovering Inside? Ethics in Correctional Mental Health Care
A shadow health care system now exists behind bars in the US, with a substantial amount of behavioral health care delivered there.
There are approximately 2.6 million people incarcerated in the US, which equates, by far, to the world’s highest incarceration rate (~700/100,000 people). It is estimated that 50% of inmates of jails and prisons have a mental illness, and 15-20% have a serious mental illness.
By convening an interdisciplinary research group that includes bioethicists, clinicians, prison reform advocates, and (at least) one former inmate, we will develop a novel line of bioethics research to examine ethics and policy questions in correctional mental health care.
This project is funded by the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania
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Ethics Track at the 2016 American Psychiatric Association's Annual Meeting
For the past five years, the ScattergoodEthics Program has organized and sponsored a multi-session ethics track at the annual APA meeting.
The 2016 ethics track includes ten sessions, led by nationally and globally renowned scholars, including:
"Recovering Inside: Is Correctional Psychiatry an Oxymoron?"
"Prodromal Psychosis: Ethical Challenges in Classification, Diagnosis & Treatment"
"The History, Ethics and Promise of Psychedelic Therapies"
"Beyond Googling: Psychiatric Monitoring of Patients’ Electronic Communication"
View the Full Program
Recent Events
APRIL 21, 2016 | Grand Rounds in Psychiatry: Giving Aslyum? Ethical Issues in Long-Term Psychiatric Care | The University of Pennsylvania
JANUARY 21, 2016 | Giving Asylum? The Ethics of Long-Term Care for People with Severe Mental Illness | The Institute of Living, Hartford Hospital | Hartford, CT
JULY 22, 2015 | A Debate on Treating Mental Illness: Should We Bring Back Asylums? | The Commonwealth Club of San Francisco | Listen
JUNE 11-13, 2015 | 7th Journal of Ethics in Mental Health Conference | Cobourg, Ontario
JUNE 7-9, 2015 | Detroit-Wayne Mental Health Association 1st Annual Interdisciplinary Mental Health Conference | Detroit, MI
About Us
The Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health Care (ScattergoodEthics) is housed within the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.
ScattergoodEthics is dedicated to education, research, and resource development for the field of psychiatric, mental, and behavioral healthcare ethics. The program engages in scholarly research, trains and educates clinicians and scholars in mental and behavioral healthcare ethics, sponsors programs and public events, and promotes and advocates for greater attention to the ethical dimensions of diagnosis and treatment. ScattergoodEthics is funded in large part by the Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation.
