Mt. Hope Family Center and UR Medicine receive award to engage the community regarding treatments for teen depression.

Mt. Hope Family Center and UR Medicine have been approved for an award by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to support a project aimed at understanding the needs of teens and parents coping with adolescent depression, and also the mental health clinicians who serve them. Approximately 16% of applicants were selected for funding, according to PCORI.

Project leads Sheree Toth, Ph.D. and Elizabeth Handley, Ph.D. from Mt. Hope Family Center, Linda Alpert Gillis, Ph.D. from UR Medicine, and Diane Merrill, patient advocate, will use the funds provided through PCORI’s Pipeline to Proposal Awards program to build a partnership of individuals and groups who share a desire to advance patient-centered outcomes research focused on adolescent depression.

“The project will involve working with the community affected by teenage depression (e.g., teens and their parents, mental health professionals, pediatricians, and other stakeholders) to more fully understand their needs and to gain their input into the development of a larger comparative effectiveness study,” said Handley.

More information about the project can be found at http://www.pcori.org/research-results/2017/enhancing-patient-caregiver-and-clinician-engagement-improve-evidence-based

Pipeline to Proposal Awards enable individuals and groups that are not typically involved in clinical research to develop the means to develop community-led funding proposals focused on patient-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER). Established by the non-profit PCORI, the program funds three tiers of awards that help individuals or groups build community partnerships, develop research capacity, and hone a comparative effectiveness research question that could become the basis of a research funding proposal to submit to PCORI or other health research funders.

“The Pipeline to Proposal Awards program is a manifestation of PCORI’s commitment to the meaningful involvement of patients, caregivers, clinicians, and other stakeholders in all our research endeavors,” said Jean Slutsky, PA, MSPH, PCORI’s Chief Engagement and Dissemination Officer. “It provides support to those who may not otherwise have an opportunity to contribute to the field of comparative effectiveness research. We’re pleased to follow the awardees’ progress as they develop partnerships and begin to form research questions.”

PCORI is an independent, non-profit organization authorized by Congress in 2010 to fund comparative effectiveness research that will provide patients, their caregivers, and clinicians with the evidence needed to make better-informed health and healthcare decisions. PCORI is committed to seeking input from a broad range of stakeholders to guide its work.

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