System of Care Evaluation
Principal Investigator(s): Gregory Aarons, Ph.D. UC San Diego, Todd Gilmer, Ph.D. UC San Diego
Co-Investigator(s): Emily Trask, Ph.D. UC San Diego and Kate McDonald, DrPH, UC San Diego
The SOCE contract focuses on data management and program evaluation for publicly-funded mental health services provided by Children, Youth & Families Behavioral Health Services (CYFBHS). SOCE works in tandem with the Health Services Research Center (HSRC), which is responsible for data management and evaluation of the Adult/Older Adult Behavioral Health Services (AOABHS) system. As part of this contract, SOCE and HSRC collaborated to develop and maintain a web-based outcomes data collection system: CYF Mental Health Outcomes Management System (CYF mHOMS). We provide ongoing training, technical support, data management, and evaluation services for CYF mHOMS. CYF mHOMS allows each contractor to generate outcomes reports for their own reporting needs, and also allows SOCE to report at the system, unit and subunit level. Outcomes measures are also linked to administrative data from Cerner, the County’s billing system, for additional reporting on systemwide service use, demographics, outcomes, and compliance. These data are also linked to information on clients involved in other public systems of care (Probation, Child Welfare, Substance Use Disorder, and Special Education) in order to examine the overlap and collaboration between these sectors.
In addition to overseeing outcomes, SOCE also supports BHS quality assurance efforts, and provides consultation to BHS leadership on program and client outcome measures and standards. Other research consultation services include development and ongoing support for the Community Experience Partnership (CEP), State-mandated Performance Improvement Projects (PIPs), Full Service Partnership (FSP) support and evaluation, disparities reporting, TAY reporting, client satisfaction focus groups, distribution and processing of the biennial Youth Services Survey (YSS), and myriad regular and ad hoc reporting requests.
Funding Information: County of San Diego Behavioral Health Services, Contract
Study time period: established 1996
Policy Dissemination Strategies to Improve the Use of Research Evidence in Medicaid Benefits for Opioid Use Disorder Treatment
Principal Investigator: Erika Crable, Ph.D. UC San Diego
More than one-third of Americans living with an opioid use disorder are publicly insured by state Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP), but many of these state programs fail to provide sufficient access to lifesaving medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). Research is critically needed to understand how policymakers overseeing Medicaid/CHIP benefit arrays solicit, receive, and use evidence to define their benefit and utilization management policies for MOUD.
This study will advance policy dissemination science methods to:
- Develop and administer a national survey to Medicaid/CHIP agency and MCO policymakers to identify determinants, mechanisms, and intermediaries that influence their evidence use behaviors.
- Empirically identify and describe distinct subgroups of Medicaid/CHIP agencies and MCOs based on their evidence use behaviors when designing MOUD benefits.
- Design and pilot test the acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility of dissemination strategies, tailored to each latent class, for promoting policymakers’ evidence-based decision-making regarding MOUD benefits.
Funding Information: NIDA, K01, 1K01DA056838-01
Study time period: 2022-2027
Expanding Care Coordination and Developing Organizational Implementation Supports to Improve Disparity Reduction Efforts
Principal Investigator(s): Kelsey Dickson, Ph.D. San Diego State University
Co- Prinicpal Investigator(s): Elva Arredondo, Ph.D. San Diego State University
Apply implementation science methods to expand a care coordinator model to include an evidence-based mental health intervention and corresponding implementation strategies to address care disparities for underserved minority individuals served by a Federally Qualified Health Center.
Funding Information: NIMHD, U54 Awarded to SDSU, U54 MD012397
Study time period: 2021 - 2023
Personalizing Parent Training Interventions for Culturally Diverse Families
Principal Investigator(s): Kristen McCabe, Ph.D. University of San Diego, May Yeh, Ph.D., San Diego State University
Co-Investigator(s): Argero Zerr, Ph.D. California State University Channel Islands
Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) interventions have been shown to be effective treatments for young children with behavior problems. However, not all families benefit, and ethnic minority families in particular are less likely to enroll, engage, and improve in BPT, in part because some aspects of these treatments may not fit with culturally influenced beliefs and attitudes about child mental health and its treatment. One way of improving engagement and outcomes in BPT for culturally diverse families may be to personalize the delivery of treatments by enhancing or modifying aspects of their delivery to increase the cultural fit of the treatment to the family when research suggests this might be helpful. In this project, we developed a personalization approach (PersIn) that utilizes cultural assessment results to tailor a BPT called Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) to individual families in order maximize cultural responsiveness to a specific family while still being deliverable to a culturally diverse population. We then pilot tested this intervention, called MY PCIT, with 32 families from a range of racial/ethnic groups (African American, Asian American, Latinx, and Non-Hispanic White) that were seeking treatment for their child’s clinically significant behavior problems.
Funding Information: NIMH, R34, R34MH109561
Study time period: 2016 - 2021
CO-CREATE-Ex: Community-engaged Optimization of COVID-19 Rapid Evaluation And TEsting Experiences
Principal Investigator(s): Nicole Stadnick, Ph.D., MPH UC San Diego, Louise Laurent, Ph.D. UC San Diego, Borsika Rabin, Ph.D. UC San Diego
Other Collaborator(s): The Global Action Research Center, San Ysidro Health
In our Phase I RADx-UP project, UC San Diego partnered with San Ysidro Health, a federally qualified health center, and the Global Action Research Center, a social change organization, to co-create and demonstrate the impact of a PCR-based COVID-19 testing program in San Ysidro, one of the most impacted areas from COVID-19 in San Diego County. To date, we have tested >10,000 community members (92% Latino) and received requests to scale-out the testing program to additional primary care clinic sites. In this Phase III proposal, we will extend work with our Phase I community and clinical partners to refine, specify, implement, and evaluate an implementation strategy bundle that optimizes COVID-19 testing, expanding beyond current PCR testing to FDA-authorized COVID-19 rapid antigen testing.
Funding Information: NIMHD, U01, MD018308-01
Study time period: 2022 - 2024
San Diego Center for AIDS Research Implementation Science Hub
Principal Investigator(s): Nicole Stadnick, Ph.D., MPH UC San Diego, Borsika Rabin, Ph.D. UC San Diego
The SD CFAR IS hub will provide consultation and technical assistance to Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) projects and will be a value-added to both the EHE initiative and the broader field of IS research and practice.
Funding Information: NIH/NIAID, P30 supplement
Study time period: 2020 - 2024
Scaling and Sustaining COVID-19 Vaccination through Meaningful Community Engagement and Care Coordination for Underserved Communities
Principal Investigator(s): Nicole Stadnick, Ph.D., MPH UC San Diego, Borsika Rabin, Ph.D. UC San Diego
Other Collaborator(s): The Global Action Research Center, San Ysidro Health
The goal of this study is to co-refine, test, and scale a multicomponent health program to address the multi-level barriers to vaccine uptake and engagement in primary and secondary preventative healthcare in immigrant, refugee, Latino, and Black, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) communities in San Diego.
Funding Information: NIMHD, R01, MD017222
Study time period: 2022 - 2027
Share, Trust, Organize, Partner: The COVID-19 California Alliance (STOP COVID-19 CA)
Principal Investigator(s): Nicole Stadnick, Ph.D., MPH UC San Diego, Borsika Rabin, Ph.D. UC San Diego
Other Collaborator(s): The Global Action Research Center
This is a California community engagement collaborative aimed at co-creating and evaluating community-driven strategies to increase participation of underserved communities in COVID-19 therapeutic trials.
Funding Information: NIMHD/NHLBI, OTA
Study time period: 2020 - 2024
Mental Health Innovation Program Evaluation
Principal Investigator(s): David Sommerfeld, Ph.D. UC San Diego, Gregory Aarons, Ph.D. UC San Diego, Todd Gilmer, Ph.D. UC San Diego
Since 2015 a team of investigators from UC San Diego has conducted outcome and process evaluations for each San Diego County Behavioral Health Service (BHS) “Innovation” initiative funded through the State of California, Mental Health Services Act. These community-based behavioral health programs are typically pilot projects that test out new strategies to increase access to behavioral health services tailored to meet the needs of specific populations that have been underserved/poorly served by existing BHS treatment programs. As of 2023, the UCSD evaluation team has worked on 15 separate Innovation initiatives. These initiatives have utilized many different service strategies and targeted a wide range of populations including: transitional age youth with serious mental illness, postpartum mothers with depression, parents of children receiving BHS services, rural American Indian communities with limited access to behavioral health services, education and outreach partnerships between faith-based communities and behavioral health service providers, persons transitioning from acute/crisis care services to outpatient care, and older adults with hoarding disorder.
Each evaluation is a collaborative endeavor in which the UCSD team partners with the relevant community-based service provider(s) and BHS representatives to develop approaches that are both feasible to implement in community settings and will result in actionable findings regarding program continuation and/or expansion after the pilot project phase. Where relevant to the target population and/or specific service modality utilized, additional subject matter experts from the Department of Psychiatry or San Diego State University supplement the core UCSD evaluation team to guide evaluation design and interpret findings for key stakeholders (i.e., program administrators, front-line service providers, and public sector decision makers at BHS and the County Board of Supervisors). In this manner the UCSD Innovations evaluation team is able to develop comprehensive evaluation approaches that are uniquely tailored to the objectives of the specific Innovation initiative, responsive to the needs and capabilities of the community-based service providers, and informative to relevant public sector entities.
Funding Information: County of San Diego Behavioral Health Services, Evaluation contract
Study time period: 2015 - 2024
Wraparound Fidelity Assessment
Principal Investigator(s): David Sommerfeld, Ph.D. UC San Diego
The Wraparound Fidelity Assessment (WFA) initiative seeks to develop and implement a fidelity assessment plan for County of San Diego Behavioral Health Services (BHS) funded Wraparound programs to determine the extent to which they are operating as high quality and high-fidelity Wraparound programs. The primary assessment tool used for the WFA will be the Wraparound Fidelity Index-Short Version (WFI-EZ), a structured survey instrument that is administered to each youth, caregiver, Wraparound Service Care Coordinator, and an affiliated "natural support" who is part of the Wraparound care team for the youth and family. Deviations from high fidelity Wraparound standards will be identified and the UCSD team leading the WFA will work with BHS and the relevant Wraparound program(s) to develop quality improvement and data monitoring plans. The WFI-EZ will be administered 1-2 times per year over multiple years to detect changes over time related to the program improvement activities.
Funding Information: County of San Diego Behavioral Health Services, Evaluation contract
Study time period: 2022 - 2024
SDSU HealthLINK Center for Transdisciplinary Health Disparities Research
Principal Investigator(s): Kristen Well, Ph.D. San Diego State University, Guadalupe Ayala, Ph.D. San Diego State University
Co-Investigator(s): Kelsey Dickson, Ph.D. University of Oregon, Elva Arredondo, Ph.D. San Diego State University
The SDSU HealthLINK Center for Transdisciplinary Health Disparities Research (SDSU HealthLINK Center; Center) was established in 2018 to augment investigator, partner, and institutional capacity for minority health and health disparities (MHHD) research at SDSU and SDSU Imperial Valley (SDSUIV), a second campus located in a rural community along the California-Mexico border. SDSU is a Minority-Serving Institution with health-related doctoral programs in several health-related disciplines. Despite significant strides in improving individual, partner, and institutional capacity to conduct innovative, transdisciplinary research, our institutions continue to lack adequate infrastructure and support services to foster research. Thus, the objective of the SDSU HealthLINK Center is to build capacity within individuals and institutions to allow for new discoveries to be made and the translation of these discoveries to evidence-based practices and policies to promote health equity and reduce health disparities. In this revised renewal application, in response to RFA-MD-24-001, we propose the following five specific aims that align with the goals of the RCMI specialized centers: 1) enhance institutional research capacity; 2) enhance investigator and partner capacity; 3) foster an institutional environment conducive to career development; 4) enhance the availability of research tools and resources; and 5) cultivate sustainable research and research translation efforts with community partner organizations. To accomplish Aim 1, the Center will support the implementation of three innovative research projects (RPs), including a basic biomedical RP, a behavioral/population RP, and a clinical/health services RP. In addition, through the Research Capacity and Community Engagement Cores, the RP teams will receive training and consultation in innovative and rigorous approaches for engaging in MHHD research. To accomplish Aim 2, the Center will fund 10 pilot projects and support their completion and transition to extramural funding through focused grant writing and project management training, gaps identified in our first 5-yr. funding cycle. To accomplish Aim 3, the Center will broaden the reach of the knowledge and skills transfer process by hosting career enhancement workshops for a broader audience, and fostering the use of research services through the RCC and CEC, in part, by promoting the established Cost Recovery Service. To accomplish Aim 4, the Center will expand the availability of research services to include training in data science and the ethical conduct of human subjects’ research. Research training and tools will be broadly disseminated through the Center- developed Health Science Research Portal. To accomplish Aim 5, the Center will maintain a 12-member Community Coalition to foster the uptake of evidence-based practices and policies. This application to renew the SDSU HealthLINK Center will simultaneously address critical needs identified by faculty, staff, and administration at SDSU and SDSUIV, as well as foster innovative transdisciplinary MHHD research that has the potential to promote health equity and reduce health disparities.
Funding Information: NIMHD, U54, 2U54MD012397
Study time period: 2024-2029