Consensus Study Highlights  | June 2025

Blueprint for a National Prevention Infrastructure for Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders

Overview

Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral (MEB) disorders encompass mental illness (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance use disorders (e.g., alcohol or opioid use disorder), and a range of concerns associated with problem behaviors and conditions. They affect individuals in every population group, community, and neighborhood in urban, rural, and suburban settings. Substance use disorder, overdose, suicide, and youth mental illnesses are all public health crises that cost the U.S. greatly in lives, human potential, productivity, resources, and more.

To date, most of the attention and resources around MEB disorders have focused on treatment and recovery. There is now a major need to prioritize the prevention of MEB disorders in order to minimize pain and suffering and reduce the immense burden on treatment and recovery systems. As such, the National Academies were tasked with creating a plan for building and sustaining an infrastructure capable of delivering prevention interventions for behavioral disorders. The resulting 2025 report, Blueprint for a National Prevention Infrastructure for Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders, makes actionable recommendations for various audiences, as presented in this interactive resource.

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A Framework for Change

Major components of the infrastructure 

The report identifies existing systems that provide a foundation for an MEB disorder prevention infrastructure including Health Care, Education, Public Health, Early Childhood, Behavioral Health, Human Services, and Criminal/Legal systems.

The implementation of evidence-based programs and policies will help strengthen protective factors (e.g., healthy social and emotional development) and reduce risk factors (e.g., trauma and stress). The gears depicted here reflect the major components in need of support and refinement (specific recommendations are identified for audiences within each component). To improve MEB outcomes, the infrastructure must embrace the guiding principles of promoting health equity and incorporating implementation science for the interventions and the infrastructure.  

HOVER ON A TERM BELOW FOR DEFINITION

What Audience Category Best Represents You or Your Work?

The report outlines components of a proposed prevention infrastructure for mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders and recommends specific actions for various audiences. Select a category below to explore challenges and potential solutions identified in the relevant chapters.

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Decisionmakers

This audience category represents behavioral health/public health agency directors, policymakers, and others who make decisions that directly impact aspects of the infrastructure, how preventive programs are delivered in communities and across different settings, and how policies can influence the protective and risk factors for MEB disorders.

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Communities and Partners

This audience category includes community coalitions on behavioral health or closely related topics (e.g., violence prevention) and institutions and organizations such as schools, places of worship, youth-serving nonprofits, agricultural extension offices, area agencies on aging, and community health centers. 
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Researchers

This audience category represents scientific researchers, government funders, philanthropic funders, and others involved in developing, testing, guiding, and supporting the production of evidence-based preventive interventions and the science of implementing them.
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Practitioners

This audience category represents workers involved in prevention of mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) disorders beyond traditional roles (e.g., licensed therapists). The prevention workforce includes prevention coordinators and implementation leads; trainers associated ...with universities or other organizations who support the delivery of evidence-based interventions; and implementers, including front-line workers from other domains (e.g., early childhood educators, aging services providers) and direct service practitioners such as behavioral health support specialists and community health workers.

 


Insights gleaned from public input meetings held by the report committee between December 2023 and June 2024

  • Jonathan Purtle

    “Policy implementation; i.e., the rollout of policies that are on the books or codified in administrative documents, is absolutely essential. We know oftentimes ...policy implementation falls short. We can have a policy enacted, it seems very promising from a population mental health perspective but we don’t see the outcomes we want, and often we are not sure is that a failure in policy design or failure in policy implementation and rollout.”

  • Rev. Que English

    “But as we look beyond what faith inherently does for the individual, we can look at what faith communities can do for individuals, especially youth, to increase protective factors and decrease risk factors. In the Center’s toolkit on youth mental health, we point toward the power of connection as a strong protective factor for all youth.”

  • Zeke Cohen

    “All of us have the ability to help heal ourselves and those communities that we serve, but it is a collective, communal approach, and collectively, we are the medicine”

  • Benjamin Miller

    “We need to bring care to where people are and stop waiting for problems to show up at a clinic or a provider’s office. Too often individuals ...facing mental health challenges encounter barriers that prevent them from seeking help until it’s too late. We require diagnosis, make people wait extended periods of time, drive great distances, all while staying stuck in a disease focused mindset. We must liberate and integrate mental health services into everyday settings.”

  • David Willis

    “The biggest piece we need is building a workforce for people that focus on upstream relational supports, protecting and supporting families, and building their capacities to the next generation of children. It’s doable. It’s in our line of sight and it’s time.”

  • Rahil Briggs

    “Poverty exposes babies’ brains to risks and stressors that can compromise cognitive, social, emotional, behavioral, physical development. The science is incredibly clear. We know ...what happens, whether it’s adverse childhood experiences science or other toxic stress science. There are direct changes to the early childhood developing brain and therefore the likelihood of developmental delays and mental health problems both in the short term and in the long term.”

Learn more

The consensus report, Blueprint for a National Prevention Infrastructure for Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders makes the case for funding, workforce, and other resources needed to support MEB disorder prevention across all communities and different settings.

Access the report and supporting materials