Community Outreach Core Collaboration Projects
Project EXPORTcontinues to work on the
Witness for Wellness
project,
which aims to improve screening, care, and treatment for depression
using an academic-community partnership. Building Wellness Pilot
project is testing the feasibility of an Internet-based toolkit for
depression screening, education, and referral in social service
agencies. One major step in improving outcomes for persons with mild to
moderate depression involves getting people to treatment through
referral. The goal of the project is to provide an accessible toolkit
for use in social service agencies and to evaluate the feasibility of
its implementation. The tools provide screening for depression as well
as education on the symptoms and treatment of depression, and a list of
local referral agencies. The pilot will determine whether the
implementation of the toolkit increases screening, education, and
referral services through a non-mental-health agency and whether the
staff find it worthwhile to incorporate into their agency’s services.
The implementation of the pilot has been and continues to be modified
according to the needs of the community agencies. Questionnaires and
focus groups will provide a basis for designing expanded use for the
toolkit.
Witness for Wellness
Depression
is one of the leading causes of morbidity and disability worldwide.
Despite the existence of effective treatments, only one in four
Americans with depression receives appropriate treatment, and the rate
is especially low among African Americans. Recent studies show that
when African Americans and other minorities participate in quality
improvement efforts in a health plan, clinical improvement is even
greater than among whites, and both groups benefit in terms of personal
economic growth (Wells et al., 2000; Schoenbaum et al., 2001). That
means that improving depression care may help address both health and
economic disparities.
The Witness for Wellness
project is a community-led, multi-stakeholder, academic-community
partnership aimed at developing community-based approaches to improve
health outcomes for depression in minority communities. We hope to
develop strategies for talking about and dealing with depression,
increasing awareness and recognition of depression, improving options
for care, and addressing issues that can lead to and/or result from
depression. To do so, we will utilize a community-based model for
stimulating change developed by Healthy African American Families
(HAAF). At the center of HAAF’s collaborative model are community work
groups that engage diverse stakeholders around a particular health
issue.
The project includes the following activities:
- an initial planning stage that includes a community forum and subsequent community discussions about depression;
- convening community-lead work groups;
-
development of draft products/toolkits to be used by the community or
stakeholders in addressing community goals, such as education, resource
development, or policy issues;
- formulation of an overall recommended approach and/or strategies for building community capacity to address depression;
- an
evaluation, largely through observation of working groups and community
meetings; community focus groups; and feedback from community
participants through interviews or brief surveys.
For more information, visit Witness for Wellness at http://www.witness4wellness.org/welcome.shtml
