State Mental Health Authorities are the primary government entity responsible for organizing, financing and delivering services to persons with severe mental illness. States require information on the efficiency and effectiveness of their management strategies. Mental health services research, one source of this information, has had less impact on state management and policy than would be optimal. In part, the disjuncture between research and policy results from the process of studying interventions and populations outside of policy contexts. In the proposed Center for the Study of Issues in Public Mental Health, we plan to address this historical disjuncture. The strengths of the Center will be its structure, its faculty and its laboratory. The Center will be located within a State Mental Health Authority (SMHA) and structured as a strong Public-Academic collaboration. Its faculty will include state mental health services researchers, state and local policy staff, consumers of mental health services and researchers from the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. Its laboratory will be the public mental health system in New York State where we will develop a program of research explicitly focused on the state mental health system - its priority populations, initiatives and the methodologies needed to understand them. An Advisory Board composed of national leaders from each major mental health constituency will critique the Center research and dissemination strategies and help to assure the national relevance and impact of the work. The Center will have three research Cores: Populations, System Initiatives and Methodology. In the Populations Core researchers will study multiple need populations from the individual's perspective. Research will emphasize an understanding of the formal and informal system of services and supports that these individuals negotiate in their daily life. The System Initiatives Core faculty will investigate SMHA strategies that mirror national trends in health and welfare for organizing, financing and delivering services' in community settings. In the Methodology Core, researchers will develop techniques that are responsive to the complex environment in which mental health services.are designed, implemented and studied. In each Core, researchers, policy staff and consumers will work collaboratively to develop, implement and interpret studies that are both rigorous and relevant. Six differing dissemination strategies will be used to reach the Center's multiple audiences. The Center, then, will provide a setting, a structure and a staff to develop a research program that will inform the scientific and policy communities who, along with consumers of service, strive to better understand and serve individuals with severe mental illness.
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