On March 28, 2003, the International Center of Mental Health Policy and Economics (ICMPE) presented its inaugural Adam Smith Award to Eric P. Slade, PhD, and David S. Salkever, PhD, of the Department of Health Policy and Management, for their paper “Symptom Effects on Employment in a Structural Model of Mental Illness and Treatment: Analysis of Patients with Schizophrenia,” in the Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics. Dr. Slade accepted the award at the Center’s “Sixth Workshop on Costs and Assessment in Psychiatry - Mental Health Policy and Economics: The Value of Research" in Venice, Italy.
The new Adam Smith Award, given to the authors of a single article published in the Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics, was founded to stimulate research and support excellence in the field of mental health policy and economics. According to the ICMPE, the award recognizes “an article of exceptional research value in the development of the interdisciplinary field of mental health policy and economics." The winning paper was chosen from among all articles published in the journal during the years 2001 and 2002.
In the article, Drs. Slade and Salkever argued that in order to measure accurately the negative effects of mental illness on employment as well as the positive effects of medical treatment on employment, it is necessary to estimate both the relationship between treatment and symptoms of mental illness, and the relationship between symptoms of mental illness and employment outcomes. Their empirical findings from a large-scale longitudinal study indicated that the so-called “negative symptoms” of schizophrenia (e.g., lack of affect, attention deficit, loss of motivation) have relatively large adverse effects on employment and suggest that the development of newer medications that are more effective in reducing negative symptoms has increased rates of employment among persons with schizophrenia.
Drs. Slade and Salkever are also associates of the Center for Research on Services for Severe Mental Illness, a joint program of the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland-Baltimore.
Public Affairs Media Contacts for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Tim Parsons or Kenna Brigham at 410-955-6878 or paffairs@jhsph.edu.
