Center on Disparities

About the MGH Psychiatry Center on Disparities

The Center emerged following a task force initiative, established in 2020 amid growing societal awareness of disparities in US populations and their behavioral health implications for those with higher risk. For example, the health disparities observed during the pandemic among patients with self-identified Black and Latino backgrounds – and related health challenges of worsening mood, anxiety, and/or substance use problems in populations – highlighted the pervasive and destructive nature of disparities as relevant to our work in the psychiatry department. The goal of the task force, supported by Maurizio Fava, MD, chief of the Mass General Brigham AMC Department of Psychiatry, was to establish culture and community in the department to address the disparities and to generate solutions relevant to psychiatry.

Among several key recommendations, the task force identified the need for a Center and Center director dedicated to these efforts.

The Center is focusing on three initial priorities:

1. Increase academic knowledge within psychiatry about disparities and the broader impacts for behavioral health in populations
2. Promote efforts in psychiatry research to investigate and mitigate disparities. It’s not just about the questions being asked—it’s about the critical need to understand the context in which they are being asked
3. Collaborate with other centers and groups across Mass General Brigham, as well as our partners and affiliates, on similar efforts to address disparities, while building and strengthening the community of people to share in this work

Disparities and Impacts to Mental Health Research

Understanding the drivers and consequences of disparities in mental health and finding paths toward solutions for these challenges requires rigorous research. To increase academic knowledge in this area, this Center and the Department will serve as thought leaders and engage in innovative research.

Examples of active and recent funded projects include:

1. A pilot study on use of real-time, on-demand transportation (rides from Uber via Uber Health) to support home health aides (HHAs) in providing critically needed on-site care for older adults – with the ultimate goal of helping to improve older adults’ behavioral health, lessening the physical and emotional strain on familial caregivers, and reducing disparities through solving the challenge of unreliable transportation faced by HHAs.
   Funding: Local Initiatives Support Corporation
2. A study that uses innovative linkages of questionnaire-based data and CMS administrative claims data among over 80,000 US older adults in two longstanding observational cohorts, as well as multi-level modeling and machine learning approaches, to understand the impacts of multiple risk and protective factors, including novel contributors, on disparities in late-life suicide outcomes.
   Funding: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
3. A National Institute on Aging (NIA)-funded Center that will deliver on the Scientific Theme of training and sustained and tailored mentoring of early-career scientists in developing, testing and implementing of scientifically rigorous behavioral health interventions for persons with ADRD (Alzheimer disease and related dementias) and their informal care partners in hospital and community settings, by providing: a) organizational leadership and infrastructure; b) rigorous research content and methods training, including on the NIA Health Disparities Framework and observed disparities in dementia among NIA-defined populations with health disparities; c) a community to support the center’s scientists and scientific theme through community connection, outreach, and engagement.
   Funding: National Institutes of Health/NIA

Our Team

• Olivia I. Okereke, MD, MS
• Director, MGH Psychiatry Center on Disparities
• Farhabi Talukder
• Clinical Research Coordinator

Support the MGH Psychiatry Center on Disparities

Philanthropy can have a pivotal impact on this work. Many of our research questions may not have natural funding sources in large agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or foundation sponsors.

The issue of why disparities persist needs further examination in psychiatry. There is a particular need for support for clinicians and researchers at critical junctures in their careers – to sustain and expand the community of people who are advancing new approaches to understand and resolve health disparities in psychiatry.

Donations to the Psychiatry Center on Disparities can help accomplish so much.

To learn more about how to support the Psychiatry Center on Disparities, please contact us.