Brown School Training Program in Mental Health Services Research

This renewal application requests funding for the Brown School’s Training Program in Mental Health Services Research at Washington University in St. Louis (Wash U). Our program will prepare 2 pre- and 2 post-doctoral trainees per year to acquire advanced mental health services research skills to address challenges faced by persons living with mental disorders who seek care at the intersection of multiple services sectors, experience high needs for care, and are the least likely to secure needed services or to obtain high quality care. Our training program includes five knowledge domains: mental health services research, research with populations affected by poverty and disease, intervention research, implementation science, and advanced research methods (e.g., systems science, mixed methods). A team of 31 highly talented mentors, co-led by Dr. Leopoldo J. Cabassa, Professor, and Dr. Byron Powell, Associate Professor at the Brown School, supports our training program. Our faculty are drawn from 3 Schools and 6 Departments across Wash U. They have a distinguished record of accomplishment in mentoring and active NIH-funded research in the critical knowledge domains of our program. An exceptional transdisciplinary training environment, including 24 research centers at the Brown School, the Institute of Public Health, and the Institute of Clinical and Translational Science supports our program. Building on our 29-year history of successfully training mental health services researchers, our program continues to innovate with the following enhancements. We strengthened our methodological training, aligning with innovations in mental health services research by adding new courses and faculty mentors in implementation science, systems science, health disparities research, global mental health, and advanced data analytics. We added a new implementation science concentration option for our pre- and post-doctoral fellows. We enhanced trainees’ scientific networking by continuing to require a learning site visit to existing NIH-funded mental health services and implementation studies across the U.S. We continued to require science communication workshops to improve trainees’ communication skills to better disseminate their work to a broader audience, thus enhancing the impact of their work. We developed new roles and training opportunities for our early career faculty to enhance their mentoring skills. The overall mission of our program is for our trainees to acquire mental health services research knowledge and skills to meet the most pressing needs in the field of social work and to advance the public health significance and impact of NIMH services research.