Professors Esteban Cardemil of the Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology and Rosalie Torres Stone of the Department of Sociology received a grant of $29,000 from the Fairlawn Fund of the Greater Worcester Community Foundation.

Cardemil and Torres Stone, in collaboration with the Worcester Division of Public Health (WDPH) and the Systems and Psychosocial Advances Research Center of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, are conducting a mental health needs assessment of the Worcester community as part of the WDPH’s larger, ongoing Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP).

By conducting focus groups and interviews with consumers and providers of mental health services, and members of community and social agencies more broadly, Cardemil and Torres Stone hope to:

• describe briefly the mental health status of the Worcester community;
• identify gaps and facilitative factors in providing services; and
• begin to inform policy around the delivery of mental health services.

Data collected from this project will serve as pilot data for future research efforts conducted as part of the larger CHIP.

Esteban Cardemil’s research focuses on understanding and addressing the mental healthcare disparities in the United States that continue to disproportionately affect individuals from low-income and racial/ethnic minority backgrounds.

Rosalie Torres Stone’s empirical work in mental health and health disparities extends existing conceptual frameworks by including socioeconomic and cultural-specific factors in examining health outcomes and access to care for underserved populations.