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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Dannia Southerland, MSW, ABD, Social Work Mental Health Research Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3701 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, 215-573-5827, dsouther@ssw.upenn.edu
There is increasing recognition that a subset of the population of poor female heads of households receiving welfare face barriers to work and self-sufficiency due to mental illness and/or substance related disorders. For these women, achieving self-sufficiency through employment can be facilitated by access to effective behavioral health services. Access to behavioral health services by this at-risk population may be in jeopardy as a consequence of the changes to welfare entitlements and the collateral effect of declines in Medicaid enrollment. The concern about whether access to needed behavioral health care services has been effected by welfare reform will be addressed by determining whether female heads of households with a mental illness or substance related disorder who were receiving behavioral health services before leaving welfare continue to receive services after leaving TANF. A retrospective longitudinal cohort study was employed to determine whether leaving TANF reduces access to behavioral health services for the target population of women heads of households. The target population for this study includes adult women who received behavioral health services based on Medicaid eligibility while on AFDC/TANF in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at any time in 1997. Subjects were retrospectively followed for four years, 1997 through 2000. The specific findings reported in this paper are the extent to which leaving TANF changes access to and patterns of use of behavioral healthcare, and the relationship of person and system characteristics associated with changes in insurance status, access to care, and intensity of service use for the target population.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Access and Services, Public Mental Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.