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Symposium

Social Research, Policy, and Practice

Community-Engaged Research With Social Service Organizations for Older Adult Mental Health Equity

Wednesday, November 13, 2024
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM PST
Location: Room 613
CE: 1.5

Twenty years ago, our research center collaborated with local community-based social service organizations to co-create and evaluate PEARLS, a community-based, collaborative care model for late-life depression. PEARLS builds capacity among trusted, front-line, non-clinical providers (e.g., case managers, community health workers) to be depression care managers, taking a “task shifting” and “task sharing” approach recommended to close the mental health treatment gap by improving access to quality care where older adults live, work, play, pray, and age. While PEARLS was developed with, in, and for communities underserved by clinical mental health care, for the past five years our community-academic partnership has focused on reaching older adults who have been historically marginalized by racism, sexism, ageism, and other structural inequities. The five-year PEARLS Equity Study is supported by CDC Prevention Research Center funding to improve older adult mental health equity through active community collaborations from design to dissemination. This symposium will bring feature several of our local PEARLS partners to highlight the value of community-engaged dissemination and implementation research to fortify the feasibility, equity, and sustainability of studies to improve the lives of older adults through the social service organizations working to support aging in place and quality of life. We will provide real-world examples that embody the GSA conference theme, the Fortitude Factor, offering take-aways for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to strengthen how community-academic partnerships are essential for generating and integrating research findings into aging practice and policy.

Learning Objectives:

  • After attending this symposium, participants will be able to describe best practices for community-engaged, dissemination and implementation research to promote older adult health equity
  • After attending this symposium, participants will be able to summarize methods, findings and implications for research, policy, and practice from the PEARLS Equity Study to improve equitable access to late-life depression care
  • After attending this symposium, participants will be able to take-away dissemination and implementation strategies (e.g. messaging, outreach, training and technical assistance) to better engage organizations that reach older adults experiencing poverty who are linguistically diverse, BIPOC, and/or rural-dwelling

Presentations:

  • 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM PST
    Equitable Access to Late-Life Depression Care: A Stepped Wedge RCT With Community Organizations

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Lanvin Andres, BS (he/him/his) – IDIC Filipino Senior & Family Services

  • 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM PST
    Best Practices for Community-Engaged Research and Practice With CBOs That Engage Diverse Older Adults

    Individual Symposium Abstract First Author: Emy Haruo, MSW (she/her/hers) – Neighborhood House