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Mental Health Issues

Meeting the Nation's mental health needs poses many challenges. Westat assists Federal and other policymakers by providing up-to-date information on the mental health service delivery system.

  • Westat conducts the Mental Health Treatment Study (MHTS), a large, randomized, controlled trial of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries with schizophrenia or affective disorder. The study assesses the impact of evidence-based supported employment and behavioral health treatments, systematic medication management, and access to health insurance on SSDI beneficiaries' functioning and employment. Expected outcomes for the treatment group include successful competitive employment and improved functioning over beneficiaries' 24-month intervention period.

  • The Westat team has developed award-winning health communications and knowledge dissemination products for the Homeless Programs and Community Support Programs branches of Centers for Mental Health Services (CMHS) in SAMHSA.

    For the Division of Services and Systems Improvement (DSSI) Knowledge Synthesis, Documentation, and Marketing contract, the Westat team crafted the Knowledge Application Program (KAP). KAP is an approach that integrates science-based health communications, social marketing, and knowledge transfer activities into an evidence-based dissemination model. Westat has designed learning products that facilitate the adoption and implementation of evidenced-based practices in community mental health and homeless programs. These products are created in a wide variety of formats:

  • Westat supported the implementation and evaluation of the Self-Directed Mental Health Services: Online Education, Coping Skills, Training, Screening, and Self-Referral Program for the U.S. Department of Defense Force Health Protection and Readiness Directorate. The objective was to implement and evaluate a customized mental health and alcohol screening program for military personnel returning from deployment.

  • The Evaluation of the Community-Based Alternatives to Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities (PRTFs) Medicaid Program Demonstration Project is a project sponsored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). A provision of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 allows up to 10 states to provide home and community-based services to youth as an alternative to PRTFs. This project tests the following:

    Westat and the prime contractor are working with CMS and state grantees to determine a final minimum data set, submit a design plan proposal, conduct the evaluation, and will produce an interim and final report based on the results of the demonstration program.

  • Westat designed and conducted the 2007 Client/Patient Sample Survey (2007 CPSS) for CMHS, SAMHSA. It is the only source of comprehensive national statistics on the use of the specialty mental health care delivery system by people with mental illness. The survey was an update of the 1997 CPSS. The 2007 CPSS collected statistical information on the demographic, clinical, and service use characteristics of persons receiving care in outpatient mental health programs. The data are being used to examine client/patient characteristics and service use over the 9-year period since the 1997 CPSS.
  • For the past several years Westat has supported CMHS, SAMHSA, in designing and implementing the SAMHSA/CMS Invitational Conference on Medicaid and Mental Health Services/Substance Abuse Treatment. This is an annual national technical assistance conference on the use of Medicaid funds to support the delivery of mental health services and substance abuse treatment. The conference offers technical assistance to states, interested organizations, and service agencies, with a particular focus on the implementation of evidence-based practices.
  • Westat played an important part on the contractor team that evaluated mental health parity within the Federal Employees' Health Benefits (FEHB) Program. The FEHB Program is one of the largest employer-sponsored health insurance programs in the Nation, serving more than 8.6 million Federal employees, annuitants, and their dependents. Westat helped evaluate the implementation of a parity requirement—that mental health and substance abuse services receive the same coverage as other health care. Westat worked with other team members to evaluate the effect of this change in benefit design, played a key role in the design of the overall study, and had lead responsibility for preparing the final project report. Westat staff members were co-authors of the summary paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006.
  • Westat operated the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) for the prevention of and early intervention in substance abuse and mental health issues among older Americans for the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), SAMHSA. The TAC was a national repository that disseminated information and provided training and technical assistance to health care agencies, providers, and state agencies. Priorities for the TAC included prevention of and early intervention in substance abuse, medication misuse and abuse, mental health disorders, and co-occurring disorders. Because the elderly population in the future will be more ethnically diverse, TAC activities emphasized the collection and dissemination of information and materials that recognize racial, ethnic, economic, and cultural diversity.

  • Westat provided technical, writing, and editorial support to the 2003 President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. Westat staff performed the following:

    The subcommittee reports covered the topics listed here:


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