As noted in a recent Los Angeles Times article, JAMA Psychiatry recently published a study showing that men are equally likely to be depressed as women. That doesn't sound very revolutionary until you consider the long-held belief that women are 70 percent more likely to have major depression than men.
As intuitive as it may be that many of the causes of depression are common to humanity in addition to life experiences such as childbirth or military service that might skew to one gender or the other, it has taken time for us to appreciate that depression—an outcome of stresses that can take many forms—can look very different in men and women.
If we include symptoms such as rage, risk-taking, substance abuse, and workaholism, according to the study, we find that major depression may be even more common in men than in women, though we are still adapting to see the signs that way.
For me, this new outlook on depression underscores the importance of our work with the Social Innovation Fund (SIF) to spread the IMPACT model across the Rural Northwest and Alaska. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, our work has a distinctly human dimension. It’s about helping people in low-income rural communities reclaim their sense of life. The sources of stress are abundant: Economic hardship, unemployment, substance abuse, and the absence of vibrant social support systems all conspire against physical as well as mental health. The means of responding to these problems, however, have been thin on the ground.
For our five current SIF subgrantees, the rationale for replicating or expanding IMPACT services could not be more compelling. As one put it, “Our rural community suffers from a lack of economic and social resources, and many of our community members are in great need of mental health services. Through this collaborative care model, we hope to transform our communities by helping individuals recover from depression.”
Progress to date has been inspiring to us, but we have capacity to do more and are happy to announce that we are seeking to do so. To spread the IMPACT model even further in the region, the John A. Hartford Foundation will soon be announcing the start of a second open competition to select another two or three additional SIF subgrantees. We’ll be seeking applications for grant funding from primary care organizations in the region that would like to expand or replicate the IMPACT model. Stay tuned to our Social Innovation Fund page.
And please spread the word!
Through the technical assistance and training we’ll deliver, primary care practices can raise the quality of care and improve the health of communities. As one successful subgrantee put it, “Although our health center has been using a collaborative care model for the past four years, the training provided by the AIMS [Advancing Integrated Mental Health Solutions] Center has given us new insight into how to improve our behavioral health program. We have found the experience of working with the Hartford Foundation and the AIMS Center at the University of Washington to be both educative and inspiring.”
As many of our readers know, this funding opportunity is made possible through the SIF grant we received from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), along with our additional support for technical assistance, training, and evaluation. In this second round, we hope to award another $1.5 million to two or three organizations over three years, contingent on programmatic requirements and the availability of federal funding.
Awards will range between $100,000 and $225,000 per year. These amounts will vary depending on the number of practice sites, patient volume, the prevalence of depression in the clinic’s patient population, and the applicant’s proposed budget for program implementation.
Subgrantees will be required to match their subgrant awards on a dollar-for-dollar basis in cash with eligible non-federal matching funds. That means subgrantees will manage a clinical operating budget that is at least twice their award amount.
In addition, subgrantees will be required to participate in evaluation activities commissioned and paid for by the Hartford Foundation to measure the success of these implementations. In partnership with the AIMS Center, the Hartford Foundation will provide subgrantees with technical assistance on program implementation, fundraising, sustainability, and potential expansion of IMPACT services.
Based on our experience from the first round, what advice and potential upside can we offer to prospective applicants? Here’s the perspective from one clinic leader:
“We were able to hire new behavioral health providers for this grant to add to our existing behavioral health department. We had our new SIF providers start early on in the program roll-out. A benefit of that has been having ample time to prepare for launching our collaborative care program for depression. This has allowed us to educate our partner agencies and medical providers in a way that we hope sets us up for a smooth roll-out once we start seeing patients.”
We’re thrilled to be adding to our family of SIF subgrantees, and we know from our long relationship with IMPACT how much of a difference it can make in the lives of people who need help. Please help spread the word to help us find the best applicants to serve more beneficiaries—men and women equally, whatever form their symptoms may take.