Evidence-based assessment and treatment of mental illness in older adults are rarely available to poor older adults of color. Community agencies and academic centers rarely partner to provide these services to underserved populations and very rarely work collaboratively on research. The Collaborative Alliance for Treatment and Assessment of Low-income Aging Consumers (CATALAC) project, a partnership between the Over-60 Research Program at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the Family Service Agency of San Francisco (FSA), seeks funding to develop a community-academic research partnership to develop a shared an mutually designed research infrastructure to assess FSA's success and mission in providing evidence-based mental health for diverse populations of low-income older adults. The activities we propose are designed to simultaneously enhance the clinical and research infrastructure at FSA, so that evidence-based interventions can be both implemented and evaluated, and to develop procedures and practices that can be generalized to other FSASF programs as well as to other community agencies. Over the past four years, FSA and UCSF, as the CATALAC team, have worked to facilitate organizational and provider readiness for adopting both EBPs and research at FSA. Activities include the creation of an IRB within FSA;participation of two FSA clinicians in the CARTA program;Mr. Bennett's strategy of involving respected, key clinicians in the development of EBP training and integration of assessment into practice;the creation of the Felton Institute for transmitting EBPs;and Dr. Arean's continued membership on FSA's board of directors.
Our aims are to (1) Test and refine an assessment toolkit for mentally ill older adults that is practical and portable in English and Cantonese (2) Implement a web-based electronic clinical and research case identification and outcome monitoring system, (3) Implement and evaluate Problem Solving Therapy for older adults with depression and mild cognitive impairment and (4) Develop a research-training program in community-based clinical outcomes research. The partnership process and activities will be evaluated by Dr. Karen Linkins of the Lewin Group. A successful community and academic collaboration must be beneficial to both partners and both partners must contribute to the process. FSASF and UCSF-OS have already begun such a partnership, which thus far is proving to be a fruitful enterprise. Both parties now wish to enhance this partnership and move it to the next level, by creating tools and methods that can be emulated and easily available to other partnerships of this nature. Our partnership also addresses county and state- level initiatives to move EBPs and integrate evaluation into mental health services. This partnership will have substantial impact not only in the field of geriatric mental health, but in policy related to community- academic partnerships.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Resource-Related Research Projects (R24)
Project #
5R24MH077192-04
Application #
8015558
Study Section
Mental Health Services in Non-Specialty Settings (SRNS)
Program Officer
Azrin, Susan
Project Start
2008-04-01
Project End
2013-01-31
Budget Start
2011-02-01
Budget End
2012-01-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2011
Total Cost
$559,936
Indirect Cost
Name
University of California San Francisco
Department
Psychiatry
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
094878337
City
San Francisco
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94143
Alexopoulos, G S; Arean, P (2014) A model for streamlining psychotherapy in the RDoC era: the example of 'Engage'. Mol Psychiatry 19:14-9
Crabb, Rebecca M; Arean, Patricia A; Hegel, Mark T (2012) Sustained adoption of an evidence-based treatment: a survey of clinicians certified in problem-solving therapy. Depress Res Treat 2012:986547
Chu, Joyce P; Huynh, Loanie; Arean, Patricia (2012) Cultural adaptation of evidence-based practice utilizing an iterative stakeholder process and theoretical framework: problem solving therapy for Chinese older adults. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 27:97-106
Mackin, R Scott; Areán, Patricia A; Delucchi, Kevin L et al. (2011) Cognitive functioning in individuals with severe compulsive hoarding behaviors and late life depression. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 26:314-21
Mackin, R Scott; Delucchi, Kevin L; Bennett, Robert W et al. (2011) The effect of cognitive impairment on mental healthcare costs for individuals with severe psychiatric illness. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry 19:176-84
Bistricky, Steven L; Mackin, R Scott; Chu, Joyce P et al. (2010) Recruitment of African Americans and Asian Americans with late-life depression and mild cognitive impairment. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry 18:734-42
Mackin, R Scott; Ayalon, Liat; Feliciano, Leilani et al. (2010) The sensitivity and specificity of cognitive screening instruments to detect cognitive impairment in older adults with severe psychiatric illness. J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol 23:94-9
Kiosses, Dimitris N; Arean, Patricia A (2010) Research on late-life depression and dementia care: across disciplines, across settings. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry 18:457-9
Mackin, R Scott; Arean, Patricia A (2009) Incidence and documentation of cognitive impairment among older adults with severe mental illness in a community mental health setting. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry 17:75-82