Methods: Estimates from National Survey of Drug Use and Health supplemented with other data sources. Advisor meetings to refine questions and formulate dissemination strategy.

Findings: African Americans are concentrated in non-expansion accepting states, and disparities would decline appreciably with full expansion. Latinos and Asian Americans would benefit more if means were found to bring coverage to undocumented immigrants.

Implications: Expanding insurance coverage can help reduce ethnic minority's noteworthy unmet need for behavioral healthcare treatment.

Study Design:  Researchers established a mentor parent group to discuss study goals, recruitment, data collection protocols, study measures and interpretation of findings to inform the protocol design of a randomized controlled trial testing the effectiveness of a psycho-educational intervention designed to teach Latino mothers activation skills. Mentor parent group discussions are held quarterly throughout the 3-year study period.

Findings: Feedback from the mentor parent group resulted in three important changes. First, mothers urged us to include school outcome measures because children’s school experiences often motivate mental health service use. During study implementation, school measure showed positive change even after three months. Second, mothers explained that many parents new to the health care system will be less ready to understand and apply activation strategies. As a result, two measures of previous experience with the mental health system were added. A quarter of mothers used mental health services previously. Last, mothers asked us to be clear that parents were welcome to continue participating even if they missed a group session or their child stopped receiving services. This has contributed to a high study retention rate (88% with completed group sessions).

Conclusions: The inclusion of parent voices in the design and development of this research increased the relevance and applicability of findings for vulnerable populations and in other settings such as the school system.

This presentation uses a Chicago-based example to describe the MHIA process and its community engagement approach. Strategies for engaging and sustaining community input will be offered that demonstrate the importance of integrating a community understanding of the social construction of well-being into public policy.

Methods:Adler University conducted a MHIA on an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 'policy guidance' addressing the use of arrest records in decisions to hire staff. The project team used a mixed-methods approach to assess potential mental health impacts of this new policy on a low-income, African American community in Chicago. 

Findings: Community input  informed policy recommmendations and influenced the process of monitoring of future physical and mental health outcomes.

Implications: Informed community involvement  provides a natural opportunity for advocacy when it is applied towards the evaluation of policies and public decisions that impact their lives

Objective: Develop and test a web-based, self-administered, culturally and linguistically specific Deaf Depression Screener (DDS), keyed to DSM criteria, in ASL for deaf individuals.

Method: A translation team approach to creating the DDS included interviewing a signing psychiatrist and a mental health interpreter, and conducting focus groups for clarity of language and usability of the prototype screener.

Results: Thus far 272 Deaf persons have recruited. Current results on validity were obtained by comparing the DDS to remote assessment by a signing mental health clinician. Both DDS and mental health clinician used DSM criteria to determine the presence or absence of probable depression. Sensitivity is estimated at 85%; specificity at 70%.   Symptoms were summed and a Pearson correlation coefficient of .85 between the scores from the first and second test administrations indicates good test-retest reliability.

Conclusion: The DDS shows acceptable levels of validity and reliability. It will allow for patient privacy and cultural specificity while meeting the need for screening for depression, the most common mental health disorder seen in primary care.