Building Infrastructure for Community Capacity in Accelerating Integrated Care

Summary

Although the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded Medicaid eligibility, Medicaid expansions do not appear to have decreased the gap in mental health treatment between Whites and racial/ethnic or linguistic minorities. There is a critical shortage of trained providers who can offer culturally congruent mental health service in non-English languages in Medicaid-based Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Building capacity and training opportunities to implement evidence-based mental health interventions by community health workers (CHWs) could expand ACOs infrastructure and increase access to and quality of mental healthcare. To this end, the investigators will test the effectiveness and implementation of the STRONG MINDS model to improve engagement and quality of treatment for depression and anxiety among low-income racial/ethnic and linguistic minority populations, served by Medicaid ACOs. Our proposed study is a Hybrid Type I Effectiveness Implementation study of the effectiveness of the mental health intervention and its impact on study outcomes within varying contexts associated with Medicaid ACOs in North Carolina (NC) and Massachusetts (MA).

Conditions

• Mental Health

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Strong Minds

The proposed intervention integrates cognitive behavioral therapy techniques combined with mindfulness exercises and promotion of behavioral activation through pleasant activities and developing supportive relationships. The intervention is led by CHWs and organized into 10 sessions, tailored to the participant using a collaborative approach, to improve mood symptoms, augment self-reported functioning, and increase self-reported quality of care among participants with moderate to severe symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. It is complemented by a care manager that links participant to services for needs related to social determinants of health (i.e. education, housing). The intervention has been tailored for delivery by CHWs in Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, and English.

OTHER

Enhanced Usual Care

Participants in this arm will receive a booklet about anxiety and depression in Spanish, English, or Mandarin/Cantonese. The Care Manager will call the participant 4 times over the course of 6 months to administer the PROMIS depression (8 item) and anxiety (7 item) short forms, a suicide questionnaire, and a question about medication side effects to mimic the administration schedule in the intervention group. With patient's permission, the care manager will inform the PCP about screening and other assessments and determine if participants should be referred to mental health or substance services and removed from control group given symptom severity.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of North Carolina, Greensboro

  collaborator OTHER

• Massachusetts General Hospital

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Margarita Alegria, Ph.D. · Massachusetts General Hospital

• Gabriela Livas Stein, Ph.D. · University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-08-30

Primary Completion

2023-11-16

Completion

2023-11-16

Countries

• United States

Study Locations