The IDEAS Center Aims
The Center integrates transdisciplinary implementation and mental health services research expertise within a healthcare quality framework across six research institutions, multiple academic disciplines, two state systems (New York and Missouri), a national dissemination network, and leverages existing National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funded mental health services research (T32) and dissemination and implementation science (D&I) national training programs at Washington University. IDEAS Center objectives and specific aims also support the NIMH Strategic Research Objectives 3.3 and 4.4.
Aim 1. Advance policy-relevant effectiveness, dissemination, and implementation research across multiple levels of state systems (policymakers, agencies, providers, youth/families), including meaningful engagement of diverse Center stakeholders, to improve publicly-funded services for youth with serious mental health disturbances and their families;
Aim 2. Identify state policy dissemination targets and test a set of brief and practical accelerator strategies (diagnostic and engagement) to improve clinical practice and youth and family outcomes;
Aim 3. Advance the development of early and mid-career investigators interested in state mental health policy and services research through the Training Unit’s comprehensive training opportunities, structured mentoring program, pilot research funding, and access to a rich set of state and national-level datasets and methodological support (via the Methods Core [MC]) to support their career development;
Aim 4. Identify and develop rigorous, practical, and novel methods for state policy research for use by health plans, payors, and states via the MC’s Project Design and Analysis Services Unit (PDASU) and Data Coordinating Unit (DCU); and
Aim 5. Engage Center stakeholders and disseminate Center findings nationally, via the Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Unit (CSEU), which will focus on the engagement and integration of stakeholder input into research projects, and the national dissemination of Center-developed research products, via the Center's website, newsletter, policy briefs, webinars, social media channels, and via our National Advisory Board, whose broad national membership and reach can accelerate the rapid dissemination of information and create efficiencies of effort in communicating Center research.
Aim 1. Advance policy-relevant effectiveness, dissemination, and implementation research across multiple levels of state systems (policymakers, agencies, providers, youth/families), including meaningful engagement of diverse Center stakeholders, to improve publicly-funded services for youth with serious mental health disturbances and their families;
Aim 2. Identify state policy dissemination targets and test a set of brief and practical accelerator strategies (diagnostic and engagement) to improve clinical practice and youth and family outcomes;
Aim 3. Advance the development of early and mid-career investigators interested in state mental health policy and services research through the Training Unit’s comprehensive training opportunities, structured mentoring program, pilot research funding, and access to a rich set of state and national-level datasets and methodological support (via the Methods Core [MC]) to support their career development;
Aim 4. Identify and develop rigorous, practical, and novel methods for state policy research for use by health plans, payors, and states via the MC’s Project Design and Analysis Services Unit (PDASU) and Data Coordinating Unit (DCU); and
Aim 5. Engage Center stakeholders and disseminate Center findings nationally, via the Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Unit (CSEU), which will focus on the engagement and integration of stakeholder input into research projects, and the national dissemination of Center-developed research products, via the Center's website, newsletter, policy briefs, webinars, social media channels, and via our National Advisory Board, whose broad national membership and reach can accelerate the rapid dissemination of information and create efficiencies of effort in communicating Center research.
