This Methods Core supports research within the Center for Research on Quality in Managed Care. The proposed Center evaluates quality of care, and developes and evaluates approaches to improve quality of care for various stakeholder groups (consumers, practices, communities) across several major psychiatric disorders (depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder), developmental age groups, and cultural groups. Rigorous research methods that span qualitative, quantitative, and integrative strategies are necessary to support this research. The Center has a strong history of quantitative, design, and policy expertise that is supplement in the new Center through an emphasis on qualitative, contextual data.
The Specific Aims of the Methods Core are: 1) to provide methodological support to the Center's ongoing studies and pilot projects; 2) to advance methods in mental health services research, especially the evaluation and quality improvement of community-based care for culturally diverse populations with major psychiatric disorders, through integration of qualitative and quantitative methods and development of new research design and methods; and 3) to support policy analyses and application of economic methods consistent with the Center's themes. To achieve these aims, the Core structure features three complmentary units: the Qualitative Methods Unit that will focus on local context and multiple stakeholder perspectives; the Biostatistical Methods and Design Unit that will provide the infrastructure, technical expertise, and resources to address methdological challenges in community-based research; and a Policy and Economic Methods Unit that will advance policy research methods and analyze substantive policy issues concerning how local financing and market forces affect access to and costs and quality of mental health care. Within this core, a Working Group on Interdisciplinary Methods for Minority and Cultural Issues is formed to inform the Center on diverse disciplinary and conceptual approaches to incorporating cultural perspectives in interventions research. The Units are supplemented by consulting with the RAND statistical Consulting group, the Qualitative Methods Core of the UCLA-NPI Center for Culture, the Latino Research Program Project, and the new Drew/UCLA Project Export Center for Health Disparities Research.
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