NAMI Ask the Expert: Physical Health Is Mental Health OD043

An on-demand video and transcript of the presentation are available here [opens in new tab].

About The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. They are an alliance of more than 650 local Affiliates and 49 State organizations who work in your community to raise awareness and provide support and education to people with mental illness and their loved ones. Through awareness, advocacy and education, NAMI is committed to building stronger communities and a better future for everyone affected by mental illness.

Course Summary

Practice Level: Intermediate

This course, based on the Ask the Expert webinar series by NAMI, reviews the evidence that physical health and mental health are inseparable, with a focus on the elevated cardiometabolic risk and mortality gap experienced by people living with serious mental illness. Drawing on community-based clinical trials, the presentation summarizes what is known to work to reduce cardiovascular risk through feasible lifestyle changes such as dietary modification, increased physical activity, and modest, clinically meaningful weight loss. The course also addresses practical behavior-change strategies and highlights implementation approaches for scaling evidence-based wellness interventions within mental health service settings. 

The course, with an intended audience of social workers, psychologists, marriage and family therapists, and counselors, equips behavioral health clinicians to integrate evidence-based lifestyle counseling, coordinated-care advocacy, and wellness-support strategies into routine practice to reduce preventable health disparities among clients living with serious mental illness.

Course Format

This course contains a participant guide, practice test, and on-demand video. When you’re ready, purchase the course by clicking the “Add To Cart” or “Enroll” button. This will let you take the test, complete the course evaluation and receive your certificate for CE credits.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify modifiable cardiometabolic risk factors associated with serious mental illness and psychotropic medication exposure.
2. Describe evidence-based diet and physical-activity strategies that support modest weight loss and reduced cardiovascular risk.
3. Select behavior-change supports that improve adherence to health behavior plans in mental health settings.

Course Syllabus

• Mortality gap and cardiometabolic risk in serious mental illness
• Evidence-based lifestyle interventions in mental health settings (e.g., ACHIEVE/IDEAL models) and implementation considerations
• Nutrition strategies to reduce cardiovascular risk
• Physical activity planning and behavior-change supports

Current References

Ambreen, M., Zhang, S., Melamed, O. C., Canning, C., Lo, B., Agarwal, S. M., Burhan, A. M., Del Giudice, M. E., van Kesteren, M. R., Konkol Thege, B., Sockalingam, S., Rodak, T., Tajirian, T., Walker, C., & Stergiopoulos, V. (2025). Strengthening the delivery of integrated physical health care for adults experiencing serious mental illness: A scoping review of interventions in mental health settings. Frontiers in Health Services, 5, 1570100. https://doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2025.1570100[opens in new tab]

Chinman, M., Wang, T., Dodge, J. R., Frank, D. A., McCoy, J. L., & Cohen, A. N. (2025). Tailored weight loss programs for adults with serious mental illness: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2025.3828[opens in new tab]

Daumit, G. L., Dickerson, F. B., Wang, N.-Y., Dalcin, A., Jerome, G. J., Anderson, C. A. M., Young, D. R., Frick, K. D., Yu, A., Gennusa, J. V., III, Oefinger, M., Crum, R. M., Charleston, J., Casagrande, S. S., Guallar, E., Goldberg, R. W., Campbell, L. M., & Appel, L. J. (2013). A behavioral weight-loss intervention in persons with serious mental illness. The New England Journal of Medicine, 368(17), 1594–1602. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1214530[opens in new tab]

Daumit, G. L., Stone, E. M., McGinty, E. E., et al. (2020). Effect of a comprehensive cardiovascular risk reduction intervention in persons with serious mental illness: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open, 3(6), e207247. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.7247[opens in new tab]

Emsley, E., Sullivan, S. A., Rose-Innes, E., Sidebotham, E., & French, C. E. (2026). Increasing uptake of physical health checks for people living with severe mental illness: A systematic review. British Journal of General Practice, 76(762), e21–e28. https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2024.0826[opens in new tab]

Musso, M., Dolber, T., & Silas, A. (2025). Antipsychotic-induced weight gain: What have we learned? Current Cardiovascular Risk Reports, 19, Article 9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12170-025-00762-z[opens in new tab]

Tran, F., Barnes, A., Urbonas, R., & Meriden, Z. (2025). Approaches to mitigate weight gain associated with antipsychotic use. Personalized Medicine in Psychiatry, 51–52, 100151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmip.2025.100151[opens in new tab]

Instructors

Dr. Gail Daumit, MD, MHS

Dr. Gail Daumit, MD, MHS, is the Vice Dean for Clinical Investigation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is the Samsung Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and has joint appointments in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She is director of Johns Hopkins NIMH ALACRITY Center for Health and Longevity in Mental Illness. After attending college at the University of Pennsylvania and medical school at Emory University as a Robert W. Woodruff Scholar, Dr. Daumit completed internal medicine primary care residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. She then came to Johns Hopkins, participating in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and General Internal Medicine fellowship and joining the faculty in 1999.

Dr. Daumit is a practicing general internist, epidemiologist and mental health services researcher whose work is devoted to improving physical health and decreasing premature mortality for persons living with serious mental illnesses. Dr. Daumit has obtained continuous NIH funding for this work since 2000, including 12 investigator-initiated grants. Her current projects — the ALACRITY Center and a newly funded NIH project named DECIPHeR— focus on testing implementation strategies to scale up evidence-based interventions to decrease cardiovascular risk for persons with serious mental illness in community mental health settings. For this work, she partners with community mental health organizations and a broad range of stakeholders.

Dr. Daumit’s clinical trial of a behavioral weight loss intervention for persons with serious mental illness, the ACHIEVE trial, was the first long-term clinical trial to demonstrate that a behavioral weight loss intervention was successful in persons with serious mental illness. ACHIEVE won the Society for Clinical Trials of the Year in 2014. Dr. Daumit also served on the World Health Organization Guideline Development Group for Identification and Management of Physical Health Conditions in People with Severe Mental Disorders. At Johns Hopkins, Dr. Daumit was awarded the Department of Medicine David M. Levine Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2018. She has mentored more than 25 junior investigators and has authored more than 90 publications.

Nicole Errickson, LCSW

Nicole is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in the state of Georgia. She brings over 19 years experience in the social work field, primarily working in school systems as a school social worker and with the McKinney-Vento grant. Over her career, Nicole has had several opportunities to help develop and execute professional development events. Nicole has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of South Alabama and a Masters in Social Work from the University of Alabama.

Accreditation Approval Statements

CE4Less.com is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. CE4Less.com maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

CE4Less.com, provider #1115, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 8/8/24-8/8/27.

Social workers completing this course receive 1 clinical continuing education credit.

We are committed to providing our learners with unbiased information. CE4Less never accepts commercial support and our authors have no significant financial or other conflicts of interest pertaining to the material.