The American Health Professional College (AHPC; Mission statement: To train the next generation of health professionals to provide the highest level of care to patients, families, and communities) and its affiliated hospital, Universal Health Care (UHC; Mission statement: To provide high value, high quality care to our patients), have been engaged in an 18-month process to better address an important and growing health inequity in their community of Middletown, USA – access to mental health care. UHC’s most recent community health needs assessment revealed that not only was the prevalence of depression and anxiety increasing in Middletown, but despite equal need across all groups, low-income and racial/ethnic minority Middletowners were less likely to receive care: Whereas 75% of White and 82% of high-SES residents reported they were “able to access mental health services when they had need”, only 45% of lower income and 36% of racial/ethnic minority Middletown residents reported similar access to care.
In response, AHPC and UHC invited community stakeholders to join their conversations, including local public heath representatives, area behavioral health providers, leaders of the faith community, patients, the director of the local homeless shelter, and the chief of police. All told, there are now 12 members of a task force, 5 from AHPC/UHC and 7 from the broader community. They decided to call themselves the “Middletown Addressing and Intervening on Depression and Anxiety Now” (MAIDAN) task force. Over MAIDAN’s first 12 months, the task force members undertook the following activities to bring to the table information relevant to how they might address the issue of equitable access to mental health care. (author introduction)