2009 Mental Health Research-To-Policy Forum Abstract
THE 2009 NATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH-TO-POLICY FORUM: Interface of Mental Health Research and Policy in the Era of National Health Reform
Both mental health researchers and mental health policy makers are being challenged by the lack of an effective interface between these fields. Mental health researchers produce analyses that policy makers can’t use effectively. Policy makers ask questions that have not been researched.
The ability of mental health research to provide policy makers with data they can use is further challenged by compartmentalization within the research enterprise between clinical interventions research and health care services research. Yet psychiatry clinical researchers will increasingly need to design intervention studies that can be used in policy decision making; and mental health services researchers will need to incorporate the diversity of individual disease biology and treatment response into assessments of system efficiencies and public health impact. Related developments in healthcare and in the economy -- comparative effectiveness, personalized medicine, adaptive clinical trials, declining payer resources, unemployment, etc. -- are enlarging the scope of issues that mental health researchers will be asked to address.
The upcoming National Health Reform debate will accelerate demands for answers to important mental health policy questions. This will require new approaches to clinical trials design, greater clinical significance in health services research, and increased interdisciplinary collaboration.
The National Mental Health Research-to-Policy Forum will attempt to provide a compass for researchers and policy experts interested in the changing mental health science-policy-services landscape. The program will feature leading researchers, policy experts and decision makers who are engaged in advancing the capabilities of research for improving mental health.
The National Mental Health Research-to-Policy Forum was designed to foster dialogue and networking opportunities among experts in psychiatry clinical trials, mental health services research, mental health economics and other medical- and social science disciplines, and between researchers and mental health policy decision makers.