HIV/AIDS Research At the National Institute of Mental Health

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Human Immunodeficiency Virus & Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Fact Sheet

NIMH has been at the forefront of AIDS research since the beginning of the epidemic and has been the focal point for developing research knowledge essential for understanding and preventing the disease. The AIDS epidemic is a public health emergency that requires a coordinated and interdisciplinary Federal response. Mobilizing the best scientific minds in both neurological and behavioral research, NIMH continues to play a pivotal role in this Nation's overall effort by developing new ways to understand, treat, and prevent the spread of HIV.

NIMH prevention research efforts target particularly vulnerable groups who are at higher risk for both HIV and co-occurring medical conditions that are mediated by health behaviors. AIDS represents a significant public health problem among the seriously mentally ill that requires an integrated behavioral and medical response. Prevention studies provide such an integrated behavioral and medical response by developing effective behavioral interventions to improve the overall health status of people with mental disorders.

An NIMH Snapshot

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 25 components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Government's principal biomedical and behavioral research agency. NIMH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The actual total fiscal year 1999 NIMH budget was $859 million.

NIMH Mission

To reduce the burden of mental illness through research on mind, brain, and behavior.

How Does the Institute Carry Out Its Mission?

NIMH conducts research on mental disorders and the underlying basic science of brain and behavior.
NIMH supports research on these topics at universities and hospitals around the United States.
NIMH collects, analyzes, and disseminates information on the causes, occurrence, and treatment of mental illnesses.
NIMH supports the training of more than 1,000 scientists to carry out basic and clinical research.
NIMH communicates information to scientists, the public, the news media, and primary care and mental health professionals about mental illnesses, the brain, mental health, and research in these areas.

Furthermore, HIV/AIDS constitutes an infectious disease epidemic, and the faster the cause, prevention and treatment are established, the faster the epidemic will end.

In 1997, the NIH convened a Consensus Development Conference of distinguished scientists to evaluate NIMH research-based scientific information on behavioral interventions to reduce risk for HIV/AIDS. The conferees, representing a wide range of scientific disciplines, concluded that these interventions "are effective for reducing behavioral risk for HIV/AIDS and must be widely disseminated."

Because the number of new infections exceeds the number of deaths due to AIDS each year both in the U.S. and worldwide, the annual number of deaths due to AIDS is expected to increase for many years before peaking.

Effective AIDS vaccines are not expected for another decade, and designing a service delivery system will take additional time. Until vaccine-based prevention becomes a reality, behaviorally based prevention strategies remain the only effective means to slow or reverse the epidemic.

History of NIMH AIDS Research

As soon as science established that HIV is transmitted by specific behaviors, it became clear that behavioral expertise would play a critical role in the development of knowledge and strategies leading to effective programs against its spread.

As part of the overall NIH AIDS research effort, Congress, through the Public Health Service Act, authorized the NIMH AIDS research program in 1983. In that year, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared the epidemic as the nation's foremost health priority. The HHS Assistant Secretary for Health directed NIMH to develop a research program to assist in preventing the further spread of the disease by identifying successful approaches to reducing risk-enhancing behavior.

Congress established the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of AIDS Research (OAR) in 1988, to coordinate biomedical and behavioral AIDS research at the NIH and with other governmental agencies. The four leading Institutes that support AIDS research at NIH — the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the NIMH — are active participants in the OAR Advisory Committee.