Isabel M. Perera, assistant professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences, has received two prestigious awards – the Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize from the International Political Sciences Association and the 2026 European Studies Book Award from the Council for European Studies – for her book “The Welfare Workforce: Why Mental Health Care Varies Across Affluent Democracies,” an open-access publication from Cambridge University Press.
In the book, Perera investigates the wide variation in services provided to those with mental health challenges, including schizophrenia, chronic depression and severe bipolar disorder, in countries with otherwise similar health systems and social policies, such as Norway and Sweden.
“In some countries, such as the United States, policymakers closed hospitals but failed to replace them with adequate social and medical supports,” Perera writes. “Other countries, though, developed much more expansive public mental health care systems.”
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