Today, on this National Day of Mourning, Advocates for Community Health (ACH) remembers former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday, Dec. 29 at age 100, for his legacy and impact on mental health and public health policy. From legislation passed to decades of fighting stigma, Carter made a lasting impact on how mental health is treated and thought of in this country and is considered by many to be a pioneer in mental health advocacy. His self-proclaimed lifelong mission was to improve life for the world’s poorest people, and today we reflect upon his legacy and efforts to support global public health.

“President Carter’s unwavering vision of human rights can still be seen in primary care today,” said ACH CEO Amanda Pears Kelly. “As a champion of the Rural Health Initiative in 1975, his work allowed for the expansion of new community health centers in some of our country’s most underserved areas.” She added, “His work in mental health policy was groundbreaking, and his influence in shifting the consensus regarding mental health in Washington remains evident as a foundational part of our model for more than 1,400 health centers across the U.S. today.”

Shortly after assuming office in 1977, Carter created the Presidential Commission on Mental Health (PCMH), which recommended, for the first time ever, a national plan to care for people with chronic mental illness. The very title suggested a fundamental shift in how policymakers in Washington would prioritize and place an emphasis on mental health issues.

According to this paper by Gerald Grob at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers University, Carter’s actions “…suggested the existence of deep-rooted problems in a mental health system that was fragmented, lacked cohesion, and often failed to meet the needs of many groups, notably those individuals with severe and persistent mental illnesses.” The PCMH’s report affirmed a commitment to the goal of making high-quality mental health care available at a reasonable cost to all who need it.

“Personal and community supports had to be strengthened, and a responsible mental health service system had to be created that provided the most appropriate care in a least restrictive setting,” writes Grob about the PCMH report. Additionally, the Commission’s report endorsed a federal program designed to encourage the creation of new community mental health services, particularly in underserved areas, and encouraged mental health specialists to work in underserved areas to increase the number of minority personnel, and to ensure that the training and knowledge of such personnel were suitable for the needs of those they served. So much of this vitally important work and many of the recommendations is still evident in the work of countless providers more than five decades later, ever present in the model and approach taken by health centers, mental and behavioral health centers and more recently, Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs).

Although the Reagan administration never adopted it as policy, some mental health advocacy groups adopted the plan’s recommended strategies to advance policy in the 1980s, according to one study. Carter also signed into law the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980, a landmark health policy that provided funding to community mental health centers on a national level.

After his presidency, Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter continued working to improve access to mental health. The Carter Center, the organization founded by the former president and his wife Rosaylnn in 1982, was established to promote human rights worldwide, spanning more than 80 countries and ultimately helped bring about the eradication of diseases, the delivery of lifesaving drugs to many remote areas around the world. The overarching focus was on improving mental health care to improve the lives of the world’s poorest and most forgotten people, an enduring legacy that continues to this day. Among the organization’s many efforts, the Carter Center helped spearhead a successful international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease, a parasitic infection caused by consuming contaminated drinking water.

“Nobody else wanted to take it on,” Jimmy Carter told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos of his fight against Guinea worm disease during a 2015 interview. “So, I decided to take it on.”

“It is visionary and bold leaders like Carter who set precedents in advocating for the poor and undeserved, specifically in health policy, that has changed the trajectory of countless lives, for so many people, and for years to come,” added Pears Kelly. “We thank President Carter for his unrelenting activism for those who all too often remained without a voice, lifting up the needs of the poor and underserved, so that people in our nation and worldwide could live a life with basic human rights, including the right to be healthy.”