A new priority-setting project will build upon AcademyHealth’s strong portfolio of work around enhancing the health and wellbeing of children and youth nationwide, with a focus on school-based approaches to support improved mental health for children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN). In addition to improving access to and the reach of mental health care, school-based services provide an opportunity for early and more effective intervention for children with high needs. These services can especially be a lifeline to CYSHCN who have or are at increased risk for having chronic physical, developmental, behavioral, or emotional conditions and who comprise approximately one-fifth of children and youth in the United States.
More than a third of CYSHCN are covered by Medicaid, but evidence gaps remain around the relative effectiveness of various school-based services covered by Medicaid. Research is needed to understand the degree to which program adaptation is required to best serve the CYSHCN population and how to effectively engage interest holders in program design and delivery for mental health care. Relatedly, research is needed to understand how to effectively coordinate care between school-based providers and other clinicians providing care for CYSHCN.
AcademyHealth has launched a new project in collaboration with Econometrica and Family Voices to galvanize the field around this topic. Supported with a funding award through the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award Program, an initiative of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), the 12-month project features three main objectives:
- Identify key patient-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER) gaps in school-based mental health programs serving CYSHCN impacting decision-makers (families, practitioners, policymakers).
- Build capacity to enhance the evidence base through interest holder relationship building and a participatory patient-centered CER topic generation/prioritization process.
- Co-develop with interest holders and promote the conduct of a national, coordinated research agenda designed to address identified patient-centered CER gaps in school-based mental health programs serving CYSHCN.
To achieve these objectives, AcademyHealth will engage a range of interest holders to unite lived and learned expertise. This includes involving CYSHCN families, school-based practitioners, state-based policymakers, and researchers in the agenda-setting exercise. The work will also leverage connections with AcademyHealth’s Child Health Services Research, Mental Health and Substance Use Research, and State Health Research and Policy Interest Groups as well as the Medicaid Medical Directors Network (MMDN).
The final prioritized research agenda will guide the field in gaining a deeper understanding of how to optimize school-based mental health services for CYSHCN, leading to more effective programs that improve mental health outcomes and wellbeing for this population.
More information on the project can be found here.