IU receives $515K for mental health provider shortage research
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Indiana University’s workforce health research institute will receive a more than half-million-dollar grant from Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc. for work to greater understand Indiana’s shortage of mental and behavioral health professionals.
A project at IU’s Bowen Center for Health Workforce Research and Policy, a data and research driven service and research hub on the Indianapolis campus, will investigate why the state is not producing enough those specialty health care workers to meet the demand through exploring the post-secondary pipeline.
Around 1.1 million adult Hoosiers have a diagnosed mental health condition, according to National Alliance on Mental Illness; about a third do not receive the health care they need. Additionally, 54% of 90,000 12 to 17 year olds with depression do not receive applicable care.
Despite incentive programs to attract more health care professionals to become state-licensed mental and behavioral health providers, center director Hannah Maxey said in a press release the situation has not improved and threatens Hoosier youth from receiving the help they need.
“Getting a handle on Indiana’s mental and behavioral health workforce pipeline — its structure, its size, where the leaks are happening and why more aren’t entering it — is a critical step that has been missing in previous initiatives aimed at combatting the shortage of behavioral health care workers,” Maxey said.
The $515,005 grant will fund a comprehensive review of Indiana’s recruitment and educations system, creation of a network of partners and stakeholders, identification of the stem of the issue and the eventual development of programs and recommendations, especially K-12 early exposure pushes, to the state government.
The project will also produce “Playbook for Enhancing Indiana’s Mental and Behavioral Health Workforce” with recommendations to better and expand the state’s mental and behavioral health workforce.