Documenting Usage of School-Based Mental Health Programs Among Racially Diverse Medicaid Patients in South Carolina

Background: School mental health programs have substantially increased in recent years and many efforts focus on the importance of quality school mental health (SMH). Much is still to learn about the usage of services to evaluate the effectiveness of SMH services for increasing accessibility and reducing disparities. Traditionally, discussions of accessibility in school based mental health (SBMH) have centered on availability of services within schools and the capacity of schools to integrate mental health services within primary care. However, recently discussions related to active school transport have increased, transgressing discussions of accessibility to include spatial accessibility. These papers have used GIS techniques such as evaluating the impact mode of travel and travel times on health of adolescents have increased. Significance: Zoning effects on school location indicates low-income students being zoned for schools often resource deprived. Within SBMH literature, there has not been much work to highlight how this might impact the ability of student populations to access schools, and consequently mental health services. Understanding the spatial accessibility of low-income populations (e.g.-Medicaid patients) receiving care at SBMH clinics may provide valuable information for future policy development. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore spatial accessibility of Medicaid patients receiving care within SBMH contexts, using GIS analytical approaches. Particularly, we are interested in exploring whether disparities exist. Regression models were tested to assess the impact of various socio-demographic variables on travel time traveled to schools providing SBMH services. Results will be shared.