Does Expansion of Community Health Centers Reduce Mental Health Emergencies?
January 24, 2020
Community Health Centers (CHCs) are funded by the federal government and provide primary health care in medically underserved regions. Currently, CHCs serve over 28 million Americans. Despite the rapid expansion of CHCs over the last decade, scant research evaluates whether this CHC growth reduces the demand for emergency care. Dr. Bruckner will present his research examining psychiatric emergencies as one key indicator of population health and the hypothesis that large increases in mental health services offered at CHCs correspond with fewer psychiatric emergencies.
Tim Bruckner, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor of Public Health
Co-Director, Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy
University of California (UC), Irvine
Tim holds a subject-matter interest in the determinants of help-seeking for mental disorder. In past work he has examined how state policies (such as California’s Mental Health Services Act) and exogenous shocks (such as economic downturns) affect psychiatric emergencies. He currently has an NIMH-funded study to examine the impact of CHCs on mental health emergencies and will discuss results of the project at this seminar.
He received both a MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics and a PhD in Epidemiology from UC Berkeley. Prior to joining UC Irvine, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UC Berkeley and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Institute of Social Medicine, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.