ABOUT US: MESSAGE FROM THE CEO

More than 5 years ago, the 2003 ACMHA Summit focused on the topic of reducing disparities in behavioral health services. I was pleased to chair the Summit. As we have inaugurated our country’s first African-American President, it seems timely to reflect on the Summit and efforts since then to reduce disparities in behavioral health.

The 2003 ACMHA Summit on Reducing Disparities in Mental Health Services had a significant effect on many of us; changing our views of the need for and how we can reduce racial and ethnic differences in access and utilization of services. It challenged our assumptions, introduced us to best practices and provided a framework for thinking about and implementing efforts to reduce disparities – from clinical practice to policy and research.

I am increasingly hopeful that the vision we developed in 2003 is closer to a reality: a vision of a comprehensive system that serves all individuals effectively, efficiently, and using person centered principles, regardless of their race or ethnicity. The Obama administration can help to speed our progress by taking the following actions:

• Maintaining and strategically expanding infrastructure support for efforts to reduce disparities by expanding funding for the current work of NNED, the CCED Workgroup and EMHD;
• Increased public reporting requirements about access to and engagement in behavioral health services for different racial and ethnic groups through the National Outcome Measures and other block grant reporting requirements;
• Increased research funding particularly on evaluating the impact of services of disparity reduction interventions in the behavioral health system.
• Expanding data driven quality improvement initiatives through expansion of the EMHD initiative to incorporate state and local initiatives. This should include quality improvement efforts, expanded learning collaboratives and the compilation of a broad based tool-kit of effective interventions to reduce disparities in access and outcomes at all levels of mental health delivery systems.

The complete article can be found at www.acmha.org.
Richard H. Dougherty Ph.D.