Westchester Square Partnership

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Westchester Square Partnership. This proposal describes a community-based participatory research project that will focus on common mental disorder (CMD) among women in a Bangladeshi community in the Bronx. Studies of South Asian diasporic communities report high levels of distress, depression, and self harm among women, along with very low rates of service utilization. Evidence suggests that low service use may be related to the lack of conceptual synchrony between standard psychiatric treatments and explanatory models of mental illness in the community. The proposed CBPR project will develop a community partnership to address the problem of CMD in Bronx Bangladeshi women. The goal is to develop an intervention model that synchronizes with women's perceptions of illness and care. The project planning group consists of researchers, clinical service providers, and a community service organization serving South Asians in New York City. We will recruit 10 Bangladeshi women from the community as partners. The study will focus on several related tasks: 1) developing the partnership, 2) conceptualizing the problem to be investigated; 3) conducting an assessment of community needs and assets; 4) choosing an intervention to address the problem; 5) evaluating the partnership, and 6) developing a community advisory board. Towards the end of the 2-year project period, we will develop an R01 application to implement and test the intervention selected in this preliminary study.