I enjoy a variety of interests related to the development and treatment of depression and other common mental health concerns. My recent work implicates efforts within Veterans Affairs to integrate mental health treatment into primary care settings. In concert with a longstanding group of geographically dispsersed VA scientists and clinicians, my work has examined evidence-based models for depression care and their adaptation to account for patient/client based-variability in attitudes/beliefs and knowledge regarding depression, stigma, treatment preferences, race/ethnicity, gender and psychiatric comorbidities. My research team at UM is very interested in models of depression resilience, depression treatment seeking/engagement, stigma that is activated by health care system encounters, the impact of conceptual models of depression on clients' treatment behavior, and the interaction of depression with other health-related conditions, like cigarette smoking, chronic pain, and heart disease.
Planned and upcoming research in our lab will include tests of whether stigma varies in relation to particular mental health treatment modalities (i.e., medication v. psychotherapy). We are also planning to examine reasons why mental health specialists and medical providers might avoid closer collaboration and communication regarding the care of shared clients/patients. Finally, our work over the past few years with Veterans Affairs culminated in an Expert Panel on collaborative depression care redesign. This group of leading clinicians and policy makers within Veterans Affairs helped us translate our recently published research into recommendations for redesign of primary care-mental health treatment efforts.
