Stigma and Discrimination

The Parity and Addiction Equity Act addresses inequities in education, employment, and healthcare for people with physical and psychiatric disabilities.
Restrictions on civil rights for people with mental illness exist in most U.S. states, impacting their ability to vote, hold office, maintain custody of children, marry, or serve on a jury.
Many states have laws preventing people with intellectual disabilities and/or mental illness from voting.
Internationally, many countries restrict the rights of people with mental illness to marry.
Some states ask questions on licensure applications that may exclude people with mental illnesses from becoming licensed health-care professionals.

Sanism is a form of structural oppression where people perceived to be mentally ill are treated as inferior.

Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness (ISMI) Scale measures stigma experienced by individuals.
Stigma of Mental Illness (SAT-FAM) is a scale designed to measure stigma experienced by family members.
The Attribution Questionnaire (AQ) and the Attitudes to Mental Illness Questionnaire (AMIQ) assess public stigma.

Evidence supports educational, skill-based, and social contact approaches to reduce stigma.
Empowering Self-Stigma (ESS) educates participants about stigma and has shown short-term decreases in self-stigma.
Recovery Colleges are educational programs that promote education about mental illness as well as social contact between people with different relationships to mental illness.

Occupational justice is the right of every individual to have access to occupations that support health and wellness.
Social stigma can impede occupational justice.
Occupational therapy intervention includes occupational empowerment, enablement, and enrichment to address occupational risks associated with deprivation, alienation, and imbalance.