Mental and Behavioral Public Health Systems Preparedness Research

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a P01 application in response to FOA RFA-TP-08-001; it focuses on mental and behavioral public health systems research in preparedness and emergency response. The application consists of a research core and four inter-related projects. The Research Core will provide project and administrative grant management. It will also support new research initiatives in the form of new investigator and pilot project funding (beyond the four proposed research projects). The four research projects themselves are heavily interrelated and synergistic. They represent different elements of a unifying organizational paradigm based on the 3 phases of an emergency: pre-event, event, and post-event, and a unifying theoretical paradigm, the Extended Parallel Processing Model. The application explicitly targets three of the major components of the public health system: (1) Government Public Health Infrastructure, (2) the Media, and (3) Communities (specific elements thereof) - The major goal of our proposed research is to build the capacity, competency, and coordination of the public health system to prepare for and respond to mental and behavioral health aspects of emergencies. Our research seeks to identify and mitigate deficiencies in organization, pre-conditioning, breadth of response capacity, competency, and coordination, and the legal environment, with a specific focus on mental and behavioral health issues. The four projects are Project #1: Applying the Extended Parallel Process Model to Willingness-to-Respond in the Public Health System; Project #2: Fostering Coordinated Mental Health Preparedness Planning; Project #3: Role of the Media in Resistance; and Project #4: Legal and Ethical Assessment Concerning Mental and Behavioral Health Preparedness. In emergencies and disasters that have occurred to date, psychological "casualties" outnumber physical casualties by as much as 100:1, yet our public health system are woefully unprepared to handle them. The four projects, new investigator and pilot project programs, together, will significantly enhance the capacity, competency, and coordination of the public mental health system in times of emergency.