What the next president can do to improve mental health

Every four years someone says, “This is the most important election ever.” But it’s hard to question the long-term impact of Election Day 2024 — from the top of the ballot.

Therefore, the first five episodes of the Fall 2024 season of the First Opinion Podcast will explore the campaign and its intersection with health, medicine and life sciences. I’ll speak with experts about issues that emerged in the campaign, issues candidates should focus on, and what a second Trump or first Harris administration might bring. Maybe think of it as First Opinion Podcast Hits the Trail, except I’m staying home in swing state Pennsylvania and fending off campaign texts.

For the first episode, I spoke with Kathleen Kelly Daughety, vice president of campaigns and civic engagement at Inseparable, a mental health advocacy organization with a strong focus on policy. “Mental health has long been a bipartisan issue,” she said. “If you read Vice President Harris’s speeches, she talks a lot about health not starting below the head.” Additionally, the Trump administration focused on the opioid response, while both the Trump and Biden administrations Prioritize suicide prevention.

“Substantially, it’s promising,” Daughety said. “But tone-wise, it’s not that helpful. I think they still are [using] really stigmatizing language that comes up in election campaigns. And that’s pretty regressive at this point.”

We talked about what questions Daughety would like the debate moderators to ask, state and local elections, the suicide and crisis hotline 988, new parity rules and protecting one’s mental health during a grueling election campaign. “No one minds saying mental health should be more important, but… it’s hard to actually get things done,” she told me.

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