MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES FOR WOMEN IN PUBLIC MEDICAL CARE

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In response to the Research Infrastructure Support Program Announcement, researchers from Psychiatry, the Clinical Economics Research Unit of Internal Medicine, and others at Georgetown University have developed a research and training infrastructure program to increase our expertise in mental health services research for women seen in publicly-funded medical settings. Faculty research expertise encompasses PTSD, trauma, and depression in women, as well as health economics and general health services research. Georgetown also has extensive clinical involvement with women in public sector settings (particularly in Medicine, Family Medicine, and Pediatrics). Recently, we have begun to integrate the areas into joint mental health services research projects. This interdisciplinary collaboration will be further developed and enhanced by the RISP. Previous studies have documented that untreated mental disorders in primary care settings represent a serious public health problem. However, these studies have not included young poor women (a group at high risk for these mental disorders yet low mental health users), who often receive their care in public sector obstetrics and gynecology clinics. Our plan is to develop expertise in mental health services research focused on public sector women, with didactic experiences and research studies designed from a patient-centered framework that investigate 1) patient characteristics, including perceived need for care and barriers to care, 2) system characteristics, including provider perspectives, and 3) outcomes, including clinical outcomes, quality of life, and costs. This RISP would enable Georgetown to become a national center for research and training in mental health services for women from public sector medical settings through: 1) developing research expertise of junior faculty from several departments via didactic training opportunities, close mentoring, provision of buy out time to develop and implement research, and pilot monies to develop R01 proposals in this area, 2) retraining three senior faculty to collaborate interdisciplinarily to develop R01 applications on mental health services for women in the public sector, and 3) drawing assistance from national experts to develop needed research expertise.