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NEWS FROM CAMBRIDGE HEALTH ALLIANCE

March 8, 2007

Cambridge Health Alliance Researchers Awarded Grant to Improve Depression Treatment for Minorities

Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Medford, Revere, Somerville, Winthrop, MA…Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) announced today that its Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research (CMMHR) has received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study the quality of depression treatment for ethnic/racial minorities. The two-year award is for $599,999.

The CMMHR, led by Margarita Alegría, PhD, both the director of the CMMHR at CHA and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, will use the grant's support to conduct a study that will provide information addressing issues of quality, patient-centeredness, and economic costs relevant for depression treatment for minorities. The study will compare the quality of depression treatment that ethnic/racial minorities receive relative to what non-Latino whites receive; explore whether geographic factors play a role in explaining receipt of quality depression treatment, and whether these effects vary by ethnicity/race; examine how depression treatment can be designed to be more responsive to ethnic/racial minority patient needs; and address the economic and social costs of depression in minority populations.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website: www.rwjf.org

Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research at CHA website: www.multiculturalmentalhealth.org

Cambridge Health Alliance is a regional healthcare system with three hospitals and more than twenty primary care practices in Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston's metro-North communities. As a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Health Alliance offers medical residency/training programs and undergraduate learning experiences in hospital and community settings. Cambridge Health Alliance also includes the Cambridge Public Health Department, CHA Physicians Organization (CHAPO), and Network Health, a managed Medicaid plan.