# data[].attributes.body
Her impact is evident in her ability to champion public policy and provide for improved treatment of the mentally disturbed. Her ability to influence the establishment of state mental hospitals as opposed to banishment to criminal institutions. Due to her extensive traveling and research methods, her reach and impact was vast and was a catalyst for changing societal attitudes toward the mentally ill. Currently, psychiatric social workers provide services such as mental illness diagnosis. Without the attention and advocacy of Dorothea Dix, there would be no assistance from social workers at state hospitals.

# data[].attributes.body
“Dorothea Dix”. (2019). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from https://academic-eb-com.unr.idm.oclc.org/levels/collegiate/article/Dorothea-Dix/30698

Dulmus, C., Roberts, A., Staudt, M., & Snowden, L. (2008). Mental Illness. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Social Work. : Oxford University Press,. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordreference.com.unr.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/acref/9780195306613.001.0001/acref-9780195306613-e-244.

Parry M. S. (2006). Dorothea Dix (1802–1887). American Journal of Public Health, 96(4), 624–625. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470530/

# data[].attributes.body
"Social reformer and social worker Dorothea Dix, whose tireless legislative advocacy led to the funding of 32 state mental hospitals, which emphasized humane care of the mentally ill during the 1800s” (Dulmus, Roberts, Staudt, & Snowden, 2008).

# data[].attributes.body
Upon discovering how the mentally ill were treated in the Massachusetts institution, she traveled across the U.S., Europe, and Asia and observed similar treatment for the "insane". This led her to submit documentation of her observations to state legislature in 1843. She led national and international movements to promote the rights for treatment for mentally ill. She helped to pass a bill for the enlargement of the Worcester Insane Asylum.

# data[].attributes.body
Dix was critical of neglectful and inhumane practices against mentally ill “inmates” after volunteering to teach a Sunday school class at the East Cambridge House of Correction in Massachusetts in 1841. Some of the inhumane treatment toward the mentally ill that Dix observed included “caging, incarceration without clothing, and painful physical restraint” (Parry, 2006).

# data[].attributes.body
Dorothea Dix played a major role in the development of treatment in mental health institutions rather than punishment for mental illness alongside criminals. She created the first generation of American asylums by lobbying state legislatures. She believed it was her divine mission from God to advocate and provide for the indigent mentally ill population.